It is not an easy task for anyone to write a tribute of a Jesuit priest with a multi-coloured personality like that of Fr. Colman de Souza. With his simplicity of life wearing a khadi kurta and a cloth sling bag on his shoulders, he was a Missionary filled with zeal, Parish Priest with humility, Province Treasurer with a smile, builder without civil engineering, lover of Tiatr, Kantar, and Marathi plays, and fan of football through all seasons. He loved to act and sing Konknni songs, switched his speech from Konknni to Marathi, Hindi, English, including a few conversational sentences in Portuguese, French, and Kannada. He never got tired of telling interesting jokes and anecdotes and entertaining his friends and others. He was at home with people of different regions, religions, languages, and cultures.
While serving as the Parish Priest at Khanapur, he completed his M.A. in Sociology as an external student, in 1988. Such was his zeal for learning. He went to Kodaikanal for his Tertianship, and pronounced his final vows on 5th November 1992. From 2006 to 2013, he served as the Province Treasurer of Goa Province. He served as the Assistant Parish Priest (2014 – 2016) and as Parish Priest (2016 – 2021) at St. Ignatius Church, Sangargalli, Belagavi District. Here he took a keen interest to nurture the fledgling St. Paul’s English Medium Primary School at Sangargalli, to cater to the needs of local students of the neighbouring villages, and built a spacious school building. In June 2021, he was missioned to serve as the Assistant Parish Priest at the Milagres Church, Ratnagiri, Maharashtra. It was here that it was discovered that he had cancer. With his cheerfulness, he left this world peacefully on 25th May 2022.
Pratap Naik, SJ
