SAN ANTONIO • A saint and a president have figured significantly in the life of Father John Kennedy. A native of India, with nary a drop of Irish blood, his parents named him for the American president they greatly admired. The Indian practice is to use what we consider the surname as an initial in front of the given name, he related, the latter becoming what a person is known by.
    Father Kennedy’s connection with St. Francis Xavier is more personal. He is the direct descendant of a 16th century Indian family converted by the missionary saint who arrived to spread the Gospel in India in 1542. So grateful was the family to him for the gift of faith he brought, that successive generations have continued a family tradition of naming their firstborn son after him.
    “So my oldest brother’s name is Francis Xavier,” said Father Kennedy, noting his brother’s firstborn son carries the same name. Also revered for their missionary work in India, he said, are Robert de’ Nobili and Blessed John de Britto. “We need to be always grateful to these missionaries,” he said. “They have sown the seed.”
    Father Kennedy is continuing another family tradition — indeed, a tradition in many Catholic Indian families, that of religious vocations. The parish in which he grew up consists of 220 families scattered throughout eight mission stations, but has currently produced 13 priests and 15 nuns. His small village of 40 families is the source of five priests, and his diocese of Thanjavur has 56 major seminarians studying for the priesthood.

    Being a Catholic and preaching Christianity has always been a difficult proposition in this predominantly Hindu nation. In India only 2.5 percent of the population is Catholic, and in Father Kennedy’s diocese there are only 200,000 Catholics in a population of seven million.

    An anti-conversion bill, put in place by a past governor in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu where Father Kennedy resides, made conversions extremely difficult for a number of years. Those caught proselytizing faced imprisonment or a large fine and Indians were only allowed to convert by going before a judicial magistrate, with numerous stipulations involved, making it a terrifying proposition. The current governor there did away with the anti-conversion legislation, but it still exists in other parts of India.

    “One of the reasons they don’t want Christians,” noted Father Kennedy, “is that we preach and want to practice justice, equality and brotherhood.” This runs contrary to the structure of Indian society, which is based on a strict caste system. “When the missionaries came over, they wanted to give the word of God to the poor,” he said, “and give Christ to the lower people who are downtrodden in society.”
    As a result, most Indian Christians come from the middle class and poorer families, with perhaps only one or two upper caste Christians in all of India, he related.

    In an effort to eradicate poverty and the caste system, the church in Father Kennedy’s diocese encourages inter-religious dialogue through ecumenical functions and prayer. They also promote education and run a number of schools, with Hindu and Muslim children making up 90 percent of the student body. “All our people like to have their children educated in our (Catholic) schools,” he said, “for their discipline and moral teachings.”

    The diocese has 51 orphanages, the largest number in India, each serving 100 to 300 students, and there are also a number of Catholic hospitals, including one run by the Missionaries of Charity, Blessed Mother Teresa’s congregation.

    The tsunami in 2004 dealt a deadly blow to the town of Vailankanni. Nearly 2,000 lives were lost and the inhabitants are still struggling to rebuild. Father Kennedy praised the immediate and generous donations sent by the United States and other countries to that devastated area and reported that work is progressing in rebuilding the houses and buildings lost in that disaster. Since the area’s primary livelihood is fishing, the church there has been helping provide fishing boats to fishermen, as well as educating their children.

    Miraculously, he noted, the well-known Marian shrine of Our Lady of Good Health Basilica in Vailankanni was spared from flood damage, though all surrounding it was inundated by the tsunami’s floodwaters.

    In addition to social service, the church there is working to strengthen the Christian faith throughout their state by celebrating 2006 as a “Biblical Year.” Their aim is to provide at least one Bible to every family, with biblical quiz competitions as part of this program. They hope to bring the Bible to non-Christians indirectly, by the example of living Christian lives and helping the poor.

    Father Kennedy’s home base is currently Milwaukee, where he is pursuing studies while speaking throughout the United States on the missionary work being done in India. However, furthering vocations is also dear to his heart and he expressed the wish that people pray daily for this.

   It was the example of his parents that led him to the priesthood, he said. His parents had little schooling (his father, a second grade education, and his mother, none), but were devout Catholics and active volunteers in their parish. After nightly family rosaries, they would ask one of their four children to read a passage from the Bible and then explain it. “That really made us think and reflect,” he said.

    “It is God who, from the womb of our mothers, before our birth, chooses us,” he said, regarding religious vocations. “And we come to understand that vocation by the help of our parents, by their regular prayer, and the help of our pastors and our teachers in our catechism classes, who inspire us to become priests or nuns.”

    “For this, people must pray daily in the church and in the families,” said the spiritual descendant of St. Francis Xavier, sowing new seeds far from his homeland. “That is my wish.”