MANGALURU: A Holy tour to Europe during the Lok Sabha election by the priests and parishioners of St Francis Xavier Church, Bejai, has invited sharp criticism from the general public especially from the community people.
As many as 96 people including seven priests left Mangaluru on April 15 for the 17-day Europe tour organised by Globe Travels. The group includes church’s parish priest and Mangalore Diocese PRO, Fr JB Saldanha and Lourdes Central School Principal Robert D’Souza.
The holy tour will cover eight countries including Rome, Vatican, Switzerland, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Czech Republic. They will be back only on May 1 and will, hence, miss voting on April 26.
The travelers had booked their foreign tour months before the poll dates were announced and were sad to know that they will miss voting in the crucial election. A traveler stated that he had expected polling to be in the month of May and could not afford to cancel the tour because of high cancellation charges. A majority of the travellers who are aged above 60 years are on the holy tour to fulfill their religious vows.
Meanwhile, the priests joining the foreign tour came as a big surprise to many Bejai parishioners. Three out of the seven priests belong to Bejai church and they had not announced their unavailability in the church for religious duties for such a long time. It is customary for the priests to inform the parishioners if they are going to be out of station for a long duration, said a parishioner.
Another parishioner said the priests of Bejai church even refrained from encouraging the parishioners to cast their vote in the election as they had no moral right to do so.
The issue gained traction on Tuesday after Archbishop of Goa, Filipe Neri Cadinal Ferrao, gave a call to the Catholics to abstain from going on holiday and pilgrimage on the voting day for the sake of casting vote which he called as a ‘sacred duty’.
He said the people will be failing seriously in their important civic responsibility if they fail to vote and it would be a disservice to the nation.