archive: Fundie, and proud of it
Streaks of dogma
Ashok Mahajan
The Weekend Observer
December 4, 1999
Title: Streaks of Dogma
Author: Ashok Mahajan
Publication: The Weekend
Observer
Date: December 4, 1999
It has often been asserted
by Christian intelligentsia in the country that the latest Vatican encyclical
Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason) shows its greater readiness to engage
in dialogue with other cultures and philosophies. The predication is questionable
because the past record of the -Catholic Church on dialogue has not been
particularly outstanding.
In 1985 it reaffirmed,
"Jesus Christ, the Son of God, made man, is our Saviour... He ascended
to heaven but not before he had carefully prepared his apostles to bring
salvation to all men, of all times, in all places... Inter-religious dialogue
would be unnecessary if all men believed in Jesus Christ and practised
only the religion which he established."
This has to be read in
the context that when it was made, Cardinal J Ratzinger was the president
of the Vatican Secretariat for Non-Christians, and the statement is in
the opening lines of the official declaration on 'Urgency of Dialogue with
Non-Christians.'
That this is the consistent
official line is clear when we see the statement of the same cardinal in
1997. He said, "Has the Church anything else to do? No. Evangelisation
is central to the mission of the Church. The Church has no other assignment.
If Catholics today won souls at the rate that the early Christians did
as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, the Holy Father would very soon
have to close down the Pontifical Council of inter-religious Dialogue because
there would be no one left to talk to."
The Irreconcilable stance
of the Holy See is discernible not only towards other faiths and philosophies,
but within its own realm as well. It is intolerant of discussions and dissent,
specifically from its third world clock. Just two instances.
The first relates to
the excommunication of a Sri Lankan priest in 1987 - Tissa Balasuriya.
The padre authored a tome titled Mary and Human Liberation which questioned
Catholic belief of original sin and immaculate conception.
Balasuriya argued convincingly
that persons of other faiths could also attain salvation. Not only that,
he alluded to the Holy See aligning with Fascism and Capitalism in the
past and still being influenced by the latter, contrary to the canonical
veneration of poverty (it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of
a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God).
He also made mention
of racial bias at the Vatican - pointing out that nuns from Sri Lanka and
other South Asian countries were employed in performing menial tasks in
the Holy Pontiffs palace. The priest was accused of heresy and expelled
from the Church.
The second instance is
more interesting. In September 1988, Vatican issued a notification urging
bishops around the world to withdrew the books of the late Indian Jesuit,
Father Anthony D'Mello, eleven years after his death.
The priest who authored
nine books (their combined sales grossed over five lakh copies), won an
international following.
The Vatican had unofficially
blacklisted De Mello's books earlier on, and it had greatly vaxed his Indian
counterparts. His writings infused Zen and other oriental flavours as he
was ready to borrow from non-Christian texts and scriptures. The papal
office released the injunction on 22 Aug 1997 through its Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, proclaiming that proscribing De Mello's
works had become inevitable as they were incompatible with Catholic faith.
It must be said on behalf
of the Indian clergy, that it did not take the ban tying down. Some even
agreed with the core argument of De Mello who had propounded that organised
religion was an obstacle to self-awareness and that Jesus was but one mater,
among many.
De Mello grew up in Bandra
and studied at Stanislaus School, Mumbai. His most popular work Sadhana
went into 23 reprints (1,15000 copies) in English, and was translated into
22 languages. The Catholic theological Society of America described it
as "perhaps the best book available in English for Christians on how to
pray, meditate, and contemplate."
De Mello speaking of
Christ as 'one master among many'-a truthful statement transcending all
religions - should have been taken as a pronouncement with Vatican II's
avowed policy of rapproachment with other faiths and ideologies. That it
was not accepted as such, betrayed signs of a fundamentalistic psyche and
the presence of a fanatical cabal governing the papacy.
Father Joe Antony from
Mumbai came out openly in support of De Mello's views, and voiced expressions
of dissent at the ban of his books in a Catholic fortnightly The New Leader.
One close associate of De Mello, Father Parmanada Diwakar, had also chosen
to defend him in the Catholic Weekly The Examiner. Citing Awareness a self-help
book, published posthumously by Double Day based on recording of De Mello's
preachings, Diwakar wondered whether anybody had been harmed by the late
Father's kerygmas.
Another Jesuit priest,
one of De Mello's earliest students at the Vinayalaya seminary at Andheri,
sees the issue as one arising out of the conflict between Eastern and Western
philosophy.
He said that De Mello
taught them to be 'free in spirit, thereby deviating from the classic Western
Church governed by rigid rules and laws.'
Cardinal Je Ratzinger
and other papal officials expressing dissatisfaction that the basic Church
teachings in India and Asia were being diluted to make them more compatible
with predominantly non-Christian cultures sounds ominous. With deep pain
and anguish, one may ask if the more spacious vision of Christianity is
going to be denounced and if another inquisition is on the cards.
The Vatican's ban on
Fr Antony De Mello's books, eleven years after his death, does little damage
to him but exposes severely the contradictions in the Church's own avowed
position.
Back
Top
|
