PANAJI
Elias R Vaz, a Goa-based commercial and logistics head of a major national fertiliser conglomerate, will lead Asia’s oldest and largest Catholic laity organisation, the All India Catholic Union.
He will succeed Lancy D’Cunha of Mangalore, who led the union during the Covid pandemic.
Cardinal Filipe Neri Ferrao is expected to address the assembled lay leaders from the many dioceses of India on Sunday.
Vaz, who was awarded the ‘Manager of the Year Award’ was elected unanimously, it emerged as the AICU began its three-day annual general meeting in the St Joseph Vas retreat Centre in Old Goa on September 30.
He is the second person from Goa this century to lead the organisation. Dr Maria Emelia Menezes, the eminent industrialist, became the first woman president in 2000, and led the union in vigorous relief work in the Bhuj Earthquake and the Tsunami.
Elections to the post of national vice president will be on Sunday.
This is the first time since the Covid pandemic, that the catholic body, which represent catholics across the country, is meeting physically.
Covid saw AICU switch to the internet meetings platforms, though its diocesan units and activists remained active helping migrants and the victims of the pandemic, especially in west and north India which were ravaged the most.
The Old Goa meeting includes meetings of the working committee, the annual general meeting and a public meeting with presentations by retired Justice John Michael Cunha, Catholic Bishops Conference of India Secretary General Archbishop Felix Machado, noted dermatologist Dr Brenda Nazareth Menezes, and writer and activist Dr John Dayal, who is also a past national president of the AICU and its spokesman.
