Abbreviation | KCA (Kanara Catholic Association) |
---|---|
Formation | 1955 |
Type | Non Profit Catholic Organisation |
Purpose | Social and Charitable purposes for Catholics from the Kanara Region |
Headquarters | Bangalore |
Membership | 1,800 |
Official language | English |
President (2020-22) | Hilma Roach |
Website | www.kcabangalore.com |
Kanara Catholic Association (KCA), is one of the reputed cultural organisations of the Mangalorean Catholic community in India.
KCA's vision is to promote educational, spiritual and cultural activities. A scholarship corpus fund started in the 1960s, has facilitated financial assistance even to this day, to several deserving students of the Mangalorean Catholic Community in Bangalore.
KCA is a major contributor in terms of land and funds to the Konkan Samudai Bhavan (KSB), which is a state of the art building to help members of the Kanara Catholic Community. One of the major aims of the KSB is to provide highly subsidised accommodations for Catholic youth who come from the Konkan area to Bangalore in search of jobs or help in the early part of their careers. The KSB is also there to help the Kanara Catholic Community to host their cultural events and other events to ensure the progress of the community.
In a Landmark event, during the Annual General Body meeting of 2018, the Chief Postmaster General of Karnataka, Government of India, His Excellency, Dr. Charles Lobo, in the presence of members and the newly elected committee, released a stamp commemorating the Monti Fest Festival of the Mangalorean catholics, which is celebrated worldwide by the community on 8 September to honour the Virgin Mary and is connected to the Harvest festival which is also celebrated in India with great gusto.
In December 2018, KCA presented Faye D'Souza, the Editor of Mirrow Now, the 'Face of the Year Award' presented by His Excellency, Bishop Henry D'Souza of Bellary.
KCA Bangalore was started in 1955 thanks to the initiative of early residents Leo D'Silva, Public Notary and John D'Sa, who was later Chief Engineer of the Karnataka State Government Electricity Board and Capt. Dr. George Mathias - a well-known coffee planter. The early meetings were in the legendary Oorgaum House, the home of Rajpramukh PG D'Souza. Its mission was to promote cohesiveness and camaraderie within the community through social events, picnics and sports. KCA became a Registered body in 1988. The membership and Articles of Association were revised in 1994.
The Annual General Body Meeting of KCA has traditionally included a Church Service in Konkani, followed by lunch and entertainment. From 1993, an annual church service for Departed Members, Thanksgiving Mass in April after Easter, and Montichefest Mass in September with well-organized liturgy and choir is always conducted without fail. Cultural events have evolved from modest social gatherings in the 1950s, which introduced a touch of culture with the colourful mando, to 1995, when a cultural troupe from Mangalore led by Bennet Pinto were invited to perform at the 40th Anniversary celebration of KCA at St. Germains School, Bangalore. Cultural programmes have become a rallying force to bring the community together to participate, have fellowship, celebrate and contribute to charity causes. From 2000 onwards, "Mango Showers" and later Mood Manglowrean [3] have showcased Mangalorean cultural heritage through skits, plays, music, dance and songs with large numbers of cultural events to promote the cohesion of the Mangalorean catholic community, which has been decreasing in numbers in India.
KCA also publishes a quarterly Newsletter called 'Khobar' from 1994. In 1995, the first Directory of Members was published. A Land and Building Fund was instituted in 1985 to harness donations from the community for charitable causes, resulting in a plot of land purchased 10 years later. Raising funds for a building turned out to be a major hurdle. In 2016, through the herculean efforts of the Konkan Welfare Trust- a joint collaboration of KCA and KONCAB, and substantial assistance from many individual benefactors both in India and across the World, a magnificent community building consisting of a hall and hostel called the Konkan Samudai Bhavan was completed.
A tradition is also the annual Thanksgiving Mass, held every year, after Easter. Donations and proceeds from this mass are given to other catholic organisations who cater to less privileged members of society. In the last few years, donations from these masses have been given to the Little Sisters of the Poor, the Leprosy Home at Sumanahally Bangalore, the home for AIDS patients on Sarjapur Road run by the Camillian Fathers, Asha Niketan [4] Koramangala a home for the intellectually disabled, part of the L'Arch communities started by Jean Vanier in France in 1970 and others
The KCA celebrated its golden jubilee in 2004-2005 under the stewardship of the first Lady President of KCA, Dr. Pat Pinto.
The KCA is run by an Honorary Committee which is elected by the AGM every year. Committee members are responsible for organising all the KCA events, with all the proceeds going to charity.
Designation | Name of the Member | Designation | Name of the Member |
---|---|---|---|
President | Hilma Roach | Vice President | Roshan Menezes |
Secretary | Lunita Pais D'Sa | Joint Secretary | Jane Pinto |
Treasurer | Ajay Fernandes | Past President | Marjorie Texeira |
Committee Member | Adrian D'Souza | Committee Member | Hariette Rebello |
Committee Member | Dr. Joseph Rasquinha | Committee Member | Palini Pinto |
Committee Member | Ivan Pinto | Committee Member | Clemence D'Silva |
Committee Member | Shoba Pinto | Committee Member | Karen Prabhu |
Committee Member | Lavina Lobo | Committee Member | Shanti Peres |
Committee Member | Rowan Pais | Committee Member | Veena Serrao |
Committee Member | Mariette Vaz | Committee Member | Cheryl Rebello |
Mangalore, officially known as Mangaluru, is a major industrial port city in the Indian state of Karnataka and on the west coast of India. It is located between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats about 352 km (219 mi) west of Bangalore, the state capital, 14 km north of Karnataka–Kerala border, 297 km south of Goa. Mangalore is the state's only city to have all four modes of transport—air, road, rail and sea. The population of the urban agglomeration was 619,664 according to the 2011 national census of India. It is known for being one of the locations of the Indian strategic petroleum reserves.
Bunt is an Indian community, who traditionally inhabit the coastal districts of Karnataka and Kasaragod District of Kerala State. Bunts were originally a warrior class community with agrarian origins, and form the landed gentry of the region. They are the dominant, land-owning farming community of Tulu Nadu and speak Tulu as well as Kundagannada as their mother tongue. The Bunts today are a largely urbanised community with a population size of less than 1 million worldwide.
Wilfred Gerald "Wilfy" Rebimbus was a Mangalorean singer, songwriter, lyricist and playwright famed for his Konkani and Tulu language compositions. He is popularly nicknamed as the Konkan Kogul meaning cuckoo (songbird) of the Konkan.
Mangalorean Catholics are an ethno-religious community of Latin Catholics from the Diocese of Mangalore and the erstwhile South Canara area, by the southwestern coast of present-day Karnataka, India.
The Milagres Church is a historic Roman Catholic Church situated in the Hampankatta locality of Mangalore. The church was built in 1680 by Bishop Thomas de Castro, a Theatine from Divar, Goa. The original structure was constructed at the site of the present-day cemetery. It is one of the oldest churches in Dakshina Kannada.
Shett is a surname and title of the Daivajna subcaste of Konkani people, residing along the coast of the Konkan region in western India. It is also an honorific used by them in Goa, Damaon, Konkan division of Maharashtra, and Kanara subregion of Karnataka.
Mangalore district that was partitioned from the erstwhile South Canara, has been multicultural and is a little different from the prevalent culture of the Carnataca state of India. A native of Mangalore is known as a Mangalorean in English, Kudladakulu in Tulu, Kodyaalkar in Konknni, Manglurnavaru in Kannada& Maikaaltanga in Byari.
Roman Catholic Brahmin is a caste among the Goan, Bombay East Indian & Mangalorean Catholics who are descendants of Konkani Brahmin converts to the Latin Catholic Church, in parts of the Konkan region that were annexed into the Portuguese East Indies, with the capital (metropole) at Velha Goa, while Bombay was the largest territory (province) of Portuguese India. They retain some of the ethno-social values and customs of their ancestors, and most of them exhibit a noticeable hybrid Latino-Concanic culture. They were known as the Brahmins among the "New Christians".
The culture of Mangalorean Catholics has been shaped by their Christianisation in Goa, their migrations& their captivity. They adopted elements of the local Mangalorean culture, but retained many of their Konkani customs and values. The ethnic Mangalorean houses of the older generation have spacious porticos, red oxide cemented floors, terra cotta roofs layered with the once famous Mangalore tiles. The houses are usually accompanied by their own private wells or ponds, and are normally attached to orchards of coconut trees, jackfruit trees, ice apple trees, Alphonso mango trees, areca nut trees etc.
The History of Mangalorean Catholics comprises three major eras. The first era consists of the cultural heritage shaped by Indo-Aryan migration into the Indus valley, later the migration to Govapuri and other prominent areas of the Konkan region, possibly due to a natural disaster that caused the drying up of the Sarasvati. Also, the various invasions and the political upheavals that followed in the pre-Partition eras of the northwest Indian subcontinent might be responsible for migration to Konkan in Western India. The second era was the legacy of Lusitanian culture, from the conversion of their Konkani ancestors to Roman Catholicism in the colonies of the Portuguese in Goa and Bombay-Bassein, and the final era being the migration of the Roman Catholics in Goa to Mangalore and other parts of South Canara between the mid-16th and mid-18th centuries, forming a unique Mangalorean Catholic identity, and the subsequent growth and development of the community. Several centuries of living in South Canara gave these Catholics an identity of their own.
Mangalorean Catholic names and surnames encompass the different naming conventions of the Mangalorean Catholic community. Historically, many of them had names of Christian saints, while Portuguese-language surnames were most commonly found. A formal Mangalorean Catholic name consists of a given name, a middle name, and a surname.
Mangaloreans are a collection of diverse ethnic groups that hail from the historical locales of South Canara (Tulunaad) on the south western coast of Karnataka, India, particularly the residents native to Mangaluru.
The captivity of Mangalorean Catholics at Seringapatam (1784–1799) was a 15-year imprisonment of Mangalorean Catholics and other Christians at Seringapatam, in the Carnataca region of India by Tippu Sultan, the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore. Estimates of the number of captives range from 30,000 to 80,000, but the generally accepted figure is 60,000, as stated by Tipu in the Sultan-ul-Tawarikh. The captivity was the most disconsolate period in the community's history.
Monti Fest is a major Catholic festival held on 8 September every year by the Latin Catholic community of Konkani people, originating in the Konkan region of India, and their descendants in the Canara region of south India. This festival celebrates the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and in the Mangalorean Catholic community involves blessing of Novem. In certain Goan Catholic dialects the festival's name is corrupted to "Moti Fest".
Vincent John Peter Saldanha was an Indian Konkani language littérateur, dramatist, novelist, short-story writer and poet. He made significant contributions to Konkani literature as a poet, dramatist, novelist, and a litterateur.
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Participation of Mangalorean Catholics in the Indian Independence Movement recounts the community's role in the Indian Independence Movement.
Roman Catholic Kshatriyas are a modern Christianised caste among Goan, Bombay East Indian, Mangalorean, Kudali & Karwari Catholics. They are the patrilineal descendants of Kshatriya and Vaishya Vani converts to the Latin Church, in parts of the Konkan region that were under Portuguese Goan rule. They are known as Chardo in Goan Konkani, Charodi in Canarese Konkani & as Sandori or Vadval in Damanese and Mahraashtrian Konknni, while others also identify as Bhandari or Khatri in the Bombay East Indian dialect. The well known households and well to do individuals among them, have mostly been endogamous.
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