Menezes Bragança organised a rally in Margao denouncing the law and, for some time, the Goans received the same rights as mainland Portuguese. However, the Portuguese Catholic Church strongly supported pro-colonial polices and attempted to influence Goan Christians to oppose the independence movement. The Portuguese Patriarch of the Catholic Church in Goa issued over 60 official letters to the priests of the archdiocese, instructing them to preach to their congregations that salvation lay with the Portuguese and in dissociating themselves from cultural-political relationship with the rest of India.