St. Joseph Vaz: The Indian Missionary Who Brought the Eucharist to the Persecuted.

September 16, 2025

In an article titled “Sri Lankan Pioneer Beat Persecution” in the New York Tablet (August 1987), American Msgr. John Condon writes aptly that St. Joseph Vaz is looked on mainly as:

“Saviour of the Catholic faith in Sri Lanka, founder of a native religious congregation at a time when such institutions were non-existent, coordinator of a missionary society which supplied Asian missionaries to another Asian country, and capable Church administrator even during a time of persecution, Father Joseph Vaz holds a very special place in mission history.”

However, there are twists to the missionary journey of St. Joseph Vaz that set him apart from the missionary contributions to the Church in Asia and elsewhere of European missionaries who worked during the colonial era.

The Unusual Colonial Setting in Which St. Joseph Vaz Served

 St. Joseph Vaz served not in a newly colonised land but in a territory that had changed colonial rulers. The Calvinist Dutch in Europe had set out to oust the Portuguese and gain their lucrative trade. They formed the Dutch East Indies Company to oust the Portuguese and take control of their possessions in the East Indies and Ceylon. The anti-Catholic Calvinist Dutch defeated the Portuguese in 1656 and proceeded to pass “Plaakats”, or laws, against Catholics in formerly Portuguese Catholic areas. 

His Unique Eucharistic Work in Mission History

- St. Joseph Vaz was not a European but a native son of India. He was born in 1656 in the tiny state of Goa in Western India. Hence, he becomes a saint from South Asia. He evangelised and brought the Eucharist and the Holy Mass to abandoned and persecuted Catholics of two other parts of South Asia, namely the Kanara region in India and the neighbouring nation of Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka).

- He founded a missionary society, a branch of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, in 1694 in Goa for native priests because he needed a missionary order to have a stream of missionaries to work in places like Ceylon, where the Church was attacked and the Catholic faith was banned.

- He and his priests ministered to the Catholics of both Kanara and Ceylon who had been abandoned by foreign missionaries when the Dutch ousted the Portuguese. They also converted a large number of people to Christianity in those regions.

- He worked in Ceylon under Dutch and other non-Christian rulers, not under Catholic authority. For 140 years of Dutch rule, the people he had converted—and their descendants—remained cut off from the Portuguese, Catholic rulers, and Rome until the British arrived in Ceylon.

- He was a refugee who came to the Buddhist Kingdom of Kandy in Ceylon and was imprisoned for two years in a maximum prison. When the King of Kandy saw that St. Joseph Vaz was a priest who worked miracles and had no political intentions, he gave him freedom to worship, preach, and build a church in his kingdom. 

- St Joseph Vaz lived under native Buddhist rulers of Kandy for twenty-three years until his death, much like Indian priests and missionaries do today after the independence of colonial territories.

- St. Joseph Vaz and his Catholic converts lived under Dutch laws called “Plaakats”, which prohibited all priests from entering Kanara and Ceylon under penalty of death. Severe punishments and fines were also imposed on laypersons who helped or harboured them or practised the Catholic faith.

- The people converted by St. Joseph Vaz were punished and denied even traditional posts and other jobs, as well as education, by the Dutch.

- St. Joseph Vaz’s missionary methods reflected the spirit of a renunciate, shaped by both Christian and Eastern traditions. He lived like an Indian sannyasi, walking barefoot from the day of his priestly ordination. He never handled money, surviving instead on alms, and slept on a simple mat. Often, he rested in the jungle during the day and carried out his ministry under the cover of night—celebrating Mass, hearing confessions, performing marriages and baptisms, and distributing the Eucharist. At times, his mission was interrupted by Dutch raids aimed at capturing him, yet he continued his work with unwavering faith and humility.

- St. Joseph Vaz organised and submitted a petition for religious freedom for Sri Lankan Catholics in 1706 at the risk of his life.

By Filomena Saraswati Giese