Author:
Publication: Threadreaderapp.com
Date: July 25, 2023
URL:    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1551456224914198528.html

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“Saint” Francis Xavier’s letters to Rome describe his fury at his inability to convert “heathen” Hindus. They reveal his rage, hatred & disgust at Hindus, especially Brahmins, for refusing to convert. The failure motivated him to ask for the genocidal Goan Inquisition in 1545.

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To Xavier, Brahmins were enemy No. 1, as they kept up the worship of Hindu gods, rituals & rites, maintenance of temples & service to the Vigrahas. His resentment is apparent when he abuses them as “perverse, wicked, unholy, crafty, cunning liars & cheats”

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Xavier especially hated Brahmins because they led the Hindu resistance to his conversion drive & challenged his activities. This angered Xavier immensely “If it were not for the opposition of the Brahmins, we should have them all embracing the religion of Jesus Christ”.

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Trying desperately to divide Hindus, he tried to portray Brahmins as deceptive, cunning thieves who cheated the working classes. Xavier rants that they are a wicked, unholy race, full of lies & deceit, who use sacred idols as an excuse to fraudulently gain offerings & wealth.

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Xavier tries to demean Hindu scholarship & learning by declaring they have "barely a tincture of literature”. Despite his best attempts, an enraged Xavier had to admit that people supported Brahmins, attributing it to their “lies & tricks” which he claims to have exposed.

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Yet despite his animosity, Brahmins treated & respected him as a man of learning & spirituality. They tried to send Xavier friendly messages & gifts, inviting him to discuss & find common ground, but he rejected the gifts as evil bribes & attacked Hindu religion even more.

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He narrates how he went to a temple, where Brahmins welcomed him to a discussion. Xavier begins asking Hindus probing questions about the afterlife, trying to defeat them . But when an 80 yr old Brahmin scholar counters him, he flies into a rage & refuses to continue.

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Xavier then boasts about how his loud proselytizing taught the “blind heathen” & “devil worshipping” Brahmins, about Hell, Heaven & the 10 Commandments. He claims he was so convincing that the Brahmins all embraced him & agreed that the Christian God is the True God.

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He contemptuously declares “arguments to convince these ignorant people” must not be subtle, or scholarly, but simple so that unintelligent Hindus could understand them. When the Brahmins asked him whether God is black or white, Xavier goes on a racist rant about Indian gods.

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In a bigoted rant, he says Hindus consider God as black, because they are black themselves. He was disgusted that they were as black as possible. To him Hindu idols smelled horrible & “seem to be as dirty as they are ugly & horrible to look at “ Such was his unbridled hatred.

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Xavier was shocked when despite their patient hearing of his ideas, they outright refused to convert when he urged them. Clearly the Brahmins were tolerant enough to discuss & debate alternative spiritual views & consider them, but remained devout & loyal Hindus to the end.

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In a desperate attempt to reap Hindu souls, Xavier’s fanaticism drove him to baptize Hindu infants & little children. The “Saint” wanted to manipulate & transform innocent Hindu children into Christian zealots & relished training them to grow up with “hatred for idolatry”

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Xavier was ecstatic when his child converts grew up to fight their own people as heathens including their own parents. He used them as a Christian army to disrupt Hindu Pujas, break, trample, spit upon, kick & desecrate sacred Hindu Murtis & temples with fanatic fervour.
  

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Francis Xavier had only one agenda in India, to convert Hindus as fodder for the merciless Christian conversion machine, so that they could be enslaved & exploited by Christian imperialists. Nothing gave him more joy than destroying temples & breaking Hindu Murtis to pieces.

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Xavier’s hatred, bigotry & contempt for Hindus, is apparent in his letters where he abuses them as sinners worshipping “mute idols” who are “phantoms from hell”. How ironic that Indians today celebrate this man as a “Saint” even after his violent persecution of our ancestors.
 

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References:
The Life & Letters of St. Francis Xavier - by Henry James Coleridge of the Society of Jesus (1872)