Father Saldanha: If I had my eyesight, I'd just be watching football

When you are a priest, Father Jose Luis Saldanha says, people treat you differently. People hold their gaze with a priest. Some nod, others bow a smidge. Most just stare. Blatantly. Respectfully. Distantly. Everyone wants to touch the hem of his garment.

People want to believe. People want to believe that a priest is not just a man. And when people see the “priest” they see a holy man. This is the reality that people seek when they seek after the priest.

It is only the priest who can give it to them. They are living vicariously. But Father Saldanha, 76, is also a man. He loves to sing. He updates his Facebook three times a week. He can get very cross. He is blind.

In 50 years as a priest, he has learnt many things: relationships are important but they don’t matter. Nothing beats an afternoon siesta. Jesus is a vagabond. “People are too serious about Jesus. Jesus is a clown!”

At his clergy home at the Queen of Apostles Parish in Ruaraka along Thika Rd, Father Saldanha, the blind priest, lays it all on the pulpit, and in his verve and off-colour quips, he seems a crossbreed of an evangelical preacher and an Old Testament prophet.

His humour is an acquired taste; and has a mouth like unswept glass — when you least expect it he cuts you. The Baby Boomer’s answer to Gen Z’s spirituality.

What’s the first thing you did this morning? Check my Facebook and my messages, and coffee. The first thing is to go to the chapel, say my morning prayers, the mass, and then I have a little thanksgiving. Then it’s time for breakfast.

Are you popular on Facebook? I post every week. I put in three posts: Monday, Wednesday and Friday to help with the liturgy of the next Sunday. Officially, I have about 5,000 followers; but they are not all my personal friends.

What’s a typical day in the day of a blind priest? Sundays centres around a mass I have at the Convent, Missionary Sisters of Charity and the Mother Theresa Sisters. They are looking after all the men here. We have about 60 here. I have mass at nine o'clock in Swahili and that finishes by 10.30am. Sunday is a bit quiet, unless there are people who come to the main parish and they want to say hello.

Over the weekdays, I have breakfast at 8am, and sit at the table with my computer till 10am and do all my correspondence. Michael, my assistant, is the one who comes to help me. I have a screen reader but Michael reads letters and the papers for me. My main work is to visit the elderly and the sick, because I kind of identify myself with them — but just the old part ha ha! Besides, I like an old gossip just as much as they do ha ha! I am back after lunch.

My afternoons are very sacred. I studied in Italy. And Italy is famous for its siesta. We never did anything in the afternoon. All my friends know not to call me at that time, because I am in la la land.

What time does the siesta start? I’ll finish my lunch by half past one, and close my eyes. By 2.30pm I should be okay. But if I have work to do, I don’t go to sleep. Or if I am outside. Late afternoon, I’ll go to the gym if I am here.

What do you do in the gym? The treadmill. We have a system of exercises and trainers down there who help me in stretching and whatnot. That will take me to 4pm. From 4 to 6pm is my outside time, where people can come to me for confessions. At 6.30pm, I’ll have my supper, do some work, listen to the news and head to sleep. But I love listening to audiobooks. I have a subscription for Audibles which will keep me company till around 11pm.

What are you listening to now? Old Jerusalem by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins, which has to do with what is happening in Israel at the moment. I have read it before, it is about the independence of Israel in 1947/48. I studied in Rome and I did a semester at the Hebrew University in Israel.

Did you always want to become a priest? People love that question. When I was 12, I wrote an essay about what I wanted to become. I never understood what it was to be a priest. I had a fanciful romantic idea of the cassock. I used to serve mass back in the day, and the priests would serve with their backs toward the people, which is different now.

What do you struggle most within priesthood? You are asking a little hard question, because I am enjoying my priesthood. When you say struggle, I think I give people a harder time than they give me. You know, we priests don’t stand easily for chit chat; you come here I want to cut straight to the chase. I won’t wait for you to talk to me for an hour like a psychiatrist or doctor. I'll tell you immediately.

When a person comes to me, I know immediately what they want. I want to get to the crux of the matter so I can help them. I am blind and I could say that is my struggle, but I wouldn’t say it has brought me down. They said I would be blind when I get to 40, but I drove way past that.

Maybe the struggle is that I miss seeing your face, seeing colour and the small children — maybe they are smiling at me and I am not reacting. But I have enjoyed my 50 years in priesthood.

Have you ever questioned God about your blindness? I always ask, "Why should I question?" There are others who are in the same boat, with more problems and with more difficulties — and I have a feeling that my blindness helps them. I think this is a gift God has given to me. I joke with people that if I had my eyesight, I would be spending my time watching football on TV ha ha!

50 years as a priest, what are you learning about yourself now? The years have passed quickly and I know myself thoroughly. I know who I am and I have no delusions. I am a people’s person, but that does not mean everyone gets along with me. I am very happy after 50 years and I cannot believe God gave me this grace to be a priest—and I am just an ordinary priest.

What’s your favourite part about being you? Seeing that I cannot see, I’ve got no worry. I think people get a little bit nervous because they are looking at themselves in a mirror and they see a pimple. I don't worry about any of those things. I know what I cannot do, and when I need something, I depend on other people. And maybe that time I am a little short on people. Don’t give me the runaround.

Does it feel like a burden depending on other people? I would say yes, because that is the reality. If I get a telephone call and someone says my mother is dying, I need someone to take me there. That time, I do feel frustrated. I could have done it on my own, but I can’t.

What memory would you like to relive? I was born in 1947 at Fig Tree Hotel in Ngara. Back then it was called Lady Greg Maternity Hospital. Those days people would get babies and stay in the hospital for days. Nowadays you get a baby and you are discharged the next day. The matrons and nurses wouldn’t release you until you were confident with your baby. I'll tell you two stories: one is the matron came to my mother when I was born and she said ‘This baby has a lucky nose.’ Throughout my life, whenever they had something in the house they would tell me to shake my nose and I would.

Can you still do it now? Yes [shakes nose]. And the second is, once, my sister came to see me in the hospital. She had a rag doll made out of cloth and when she got home, she put it on the jiko because she now has a baby that moves its hands and everything. That baby was me. I won’t tell you the nickname of the doll, but I will tell you that it became my new nickname.

But that was my next question! Okay, so what remains unchanged about you since childhood? I have always been confident. When you like a girl, for example, as a man, you get nervous. I never did that. Introduce me to somebody and I would talk straight away.

What’s your temptation? We priests got power, we got money and about sex. That’s where the temptations lie. I am not saying that I have completely conquered them but this thing about money—but not money for myself, but money to do things.

I wish I had more money to help the people who are coming to me. Sometimes, their problems are financial: school fees and hospital fees. And I don’t want people to think I am a money dispenser, God has given me a separate vocation to be a blessing, my words are a blessing rather than giving handouts.

What do you have that money can’t buy? My God. I am always telling Michael we should get a new car and he says ‘No, this is a nice small car.’ I’ve got books, my computer, my bed, the chapel; what else do I need?

What matters way less than you thought it would? Relationships. There is no doubt that it is in your DNA to have a family, have children. Maybe there were times I would be asking, have I made the right choice? I am alone. Now, I have reached this age and with all my experience, my heart goes out to everyone in strained marriages, and it is all valid but it also doesn’t matter. I have lots of friends and children, so I don’t miss anything. Sometimes, maybe, I am lonely, but it’s just for a little while.

What do you do when you are lonely? I love reading and playing music. Not only classical, but also pop. However, not recent pop. The 50s and 60s. I know all the music. Somebody has given me a subscription to Alexa, which has Spotify, so I can play any music. Ask me any song and I will sing it.

What song are you listening to now? Now, you’ve told me I can’t sing ha ha! [proceeds to sing] “Wise men said, only fools rush in. For I can’t help falling in love with you. Shall I stay; would it be a sin, if I can’t help falling in love with you. Like a river flows, surely to the sea, darling so it goes, somethings are meant to be…take my hand, take my whole life too, for I can’t help falling in love with you.”

That’s very nice. If you weren’t a priest would you be a musician? See, any of these love songs if you change the words a little, it would be referring to God. But if I wasn’t a priest I would be a doctor.

What is something I wouldn’t believe about you? That I can be rude, sometimes. I understand that I should have a little more patience. I have no patience when I go shopping and people take me for granted, or when we are queuing and someone wants to cut the line and everyone is quiet because they are afraid. I say “Hey! Toka!” and he would say “But you are a priest. You shouldn’t be acting like that.” And I would double down. If you meet someone who has felt my tongue, you wouldn’t believe it is me ha ha! Ask these young men that are helping me here, they will tell you the truth ha ha!

What do you desire that you haven’t gotten? Another hard question. I learned not to wish for something that I know I cannot have. Travelling, maybe. I would get a little bit jealous, but I am always happy for other people who are going out, but only they must sit down and talk to me about everything they experience.

What’s one thing you are ashamed of? I love people and I really work at relationships, but I am ashamed of the ones that have fallen through the cracks. I opened my Facebook today and it was someone’s birthday, but we fell out and I am terribly ashamed of that. I have hurt people — not many people — but I would like to get back those times.

It is so easy and it just needs a little spark coming from God. There is a person I haven’t talked to for nearly 25 years, and we were very good friends, and I am ashamed of that. I don’t work at antagonising people but sometimes it happens in such a serious way that relationships are broken. I know them and I keep them close to my heart, so that maybe things will work out someday. 

Why won’t you be the bigger man? I don’t want to overpower somebody. Even to be forgiving or loving can put someone at a disadvantage. If you are the bigger man, they may get a little bit annoyed that they were not the bigger man first. It needs to happen in God’s time.

What will people mourn about you when you are gone? I am a Goan. There is a strong Goan community here, less than 2,000 people. And they are kind of dependent on me because other priests are a bit busy.

What’s important to you now? I am getting old and slowing down. The important thing is life. I go everywhere, eat, go to Kibera, and handle mass in the evening. My life is full. There is nothing I cannot do. When I don’t have anything, I have my books, or my computer. And I’ve got my siesta too!

What's life's simplest pleasure? Food.

What do you like eating? We Goans have a cuisine that we think is just the best. There is one dish we make out of pork called sorpotel. Delicious! We’ve got biryani and sweets — which are very bad for me now. All Goans start cooking sweets, and there are like 20 varieties! TWENTY! We share all these sweets with everybody at Christmas. I love food. Oh, how I love food ha ha!

What is the most painful thing you’ve been told? Bereavement. I have not made peace with people dying, even though I am very good at funerals. I stayed with my mother for sometime before she died, and that was really terrible.

Were you a mama’s boy? I am the last born, yes, but I feel very sorry for my brother and sister for being the first, they had a greater responsibility. I was very lucky and intelligent in school. And I think mama loved us all equally. She stayed with all of us at some point.

What’s a special memory that you have between the two of you? My mother was very tiny. But she gave me confidence. I got my white cane in 2003 and my mother died in 2003. I used to walk with my mother and I used to hold her hand. She was leading me, but people thought I was leading her. They would say, this man is looking after his mother well ha ha!

What are you praying about now? Being a priest gives you a world attitude. I am praying for the Israel conflict. Every day, I have a payer item.

What is one question you wish more people asked you? People are very conscious about me being a priest. Sometimes, in a gathering, people will just be talking about party things. I would love people to ask me about religion, why God saved us, or the virgin birth and all. I am always asking people how they are doing, maybe if I shut up they would ask me about religion [chuckles].

Who do you identify with most in the bible? A prophet. I would have loved to say I identify myself with Jesus but, for me, Jesus is a clown! Everybody is very serious about Jesus but, for me, Jesus is a vagabond ha ha! He was just travelling and he had this band of people with him; and mama would say the same thing about me, you got the right vocation because you are a clown, you are on the stage all the time.

But I identify with Prophet Isaiah, a princely prophet; and Amos, who stood at the gates and he shouted at the priests getting embarrassed, and John the Baptist. People came in their thousands to hear John the Baptist’s message. People come to me for the message.

Which Bible verse do you struggle with most? This Sunday, I was speaking to the sisters about how those who exalt themselves will be humbled and vice versa. We think heaven is like that. We judge people we think won’t go to heaven. Jesus said tax collectors and prostitutes are going before me. Nobody should be looking to go to heaven to be exalted, because we will all be equal in heaven.

What makes you happy now? I had a wonderful childhood. In the 50s we had a wonderful time here. The 60s, I was in Rome — I know Rome like the back of my hand. In the 70s, I got ordained. In the 80s, I did my most work, in spite of my eyes.

Then, I ran a refugee program here. In the 90s I stayed with my mother, and got really good food. In the aughts, I was the chaplain at Nyumba ya Wazee. I got a little bored, and came here. Now I am enjoying life. 

Who do you know that I should know? Father Ottone Cantore. He teaches at CUEA (Catholic University of East Africa) and I am happy to call him a friend. 

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