Author: Sucheta Dasgupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: November 1, 2009
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/212601/Home-truths-from-the-Church.html
This autobiography of a nun, writes Sucheta
Dasgupta, is a no-holds-barred indictment of the clergy for its malpractices
and hypocrisy
Amen: The Autobiography of a Nun
Author: Sister Jesme
Publisher:Penguin
Price: Rs 225
Whoever the Son of God sets free is free indeed!
- John 8:38
It was following a personal revelation to
her by Jesus Christ - as she claims in her controversial but first-of-its-kind
autobiography - that 53-year-old Sister Jesme, principal of St Maria's College,
Thrissur, decided to leave the Congregation of Mother Carmel (CMC) in Kerala
in August 2008, after 33 years of service as a nun.
These years had been mostly spent in teaching,
study and prayer; with special sanction, the sister had been permitted to
continue higher studies for MPhil and a PhD on a merit scholarship by the
Government of India, and taught in two colleges for six years, as vice-principal
in one and principal in the other, and received a district award for her ground-level
work as an educationist.
Though she does not mention in her memoirs
when and why she chooses to pen it - the CMC's denial of charity, one of the
integral values of the church, in the form of a stipend as part of her voluntary
retirement plan might have firmed the idea and her resolve - Sr Jesme delivers
a no-holds-barred indictment of the clergy for its malpractices and its fraud
by way of donations for college seats, acceptance of capitation fee, class
discrimination against poorer nuns (raising the issue of Dalit Christians),
alleged mendacity on the part of the Mother General and physical relationships
between nuns and those between priests and nuns in her book.
The last of these, which she was allegedly
victim to, disturbed her the most and affects the objectivity of her narrative
inasmuch as she neglects to dwell on the drama of how she stopped the acceptance
of capitation fee in her college and, as principal, stemmed the money-minting
tendencies of her staff and superiors as well as how she successfully stood
up for poorer but meritorious students who deserved the chance to further
their education. But that might only be proof of her sincerity and innocence,
virtues that garnered for her the suspicion of her seniors, false propaganda
of people with prurient motives, and conspiracies to brand her insane and
lock her up in a mental institution unexamined. Her humility in her heroics
impresses and despite every hardship, she never gives up the fight.
Deeply conservative but never conformist (so
she never loses her ability to actively discern the better from the good and
right from wrong), Sr Jesme's own revelations of the order are shocking to
many but not so surprising to others. As early as in 1051, St Peter Damian's
Book of Gomorrah speaks of the homosexual network in Europe's Catholic priesthood,
culminating in an appeal to the Pope for reform, then denied. In July 2008,
Pope Benedict XVI issued a public apology to sex abuse victims after a wave
of articles and accounts documenting men's homosexuality and paedophilia (Altar
Boy: A Story of Life After Abuse by Andrew Madden, Strong at the Heart by
Carolyn Lehman, films The Magdalene Sisters, 2002, and Deliver Us From Evil,
2006) worked up outrage in the public and the media.
This book, as the author herself mentions,
comes on the heels of various scandals surrounding the exploitation of women
rocking the Kerala Christian Church - viz, the Sister Abhaya murder case (1992-2008),
Sister Paulsey's suicide following rape (2000), the John Thattunkal adoption
controversy (October, 2008) and, the most recent of them all, Sister Anupa
Mary's suicide - and could not have been written at a more apposite hour.
It is the first account by a male or female of corruption inside the Indian
church.
According to the findings of Father Joy Kalliath
of CMI, 25 per cent of the nuns in Kerala are discontented with their consecrated
lives. Most of them are given to the clerical order at a very young age by
their families who are under pressure of poverty which discourages them from
raising their children and disallows them from otherwise equipping them with
the skills and means of earning a livelihood.
By no means a creative masterpiece, Sr Jesme's
distressing story can be criticised on two counts if one were to be rigorous:
her passion for classic cinema (she exposed her wards to modern as well as
landmark films in the belief that aesthetics enhances spirituality, which
constituted one of her numerous trespasses against the management which, in
turn, believed that monasticism did not go with viewing cinema) and her principle
of advocating "freedom with responsibility" and "responsible
obedience" as opposed to "blind obedience", which included
her non-acceptance of some of the apostles' "anti-woman attitude"
(which made for more dispute).
In 1893, Matilda Joslyn Gage took time out
from her participation in the Revising Committee that compiled The Woman's
Bible to write Woman, Church and State, a book which challenged traditional
Judeo-Christian teaching that women were the source of sin, and that sex was
sinful. Gage wrote that the double standard for morality hurt both the sexes.
Gage differed from most of the women on the Revising Committee in that she
did not feel that the Bible - once it was interpreted in a more true, original
form - would support women's rights. Especially troubling to Gage was the
story of Adam and Eve.
The church's vows of celibacy and renouncement
of sensation and worldly pleasures abjures cinema. Though blessed with a strong
conscience and the gift of revelation, the spirited Sr Jesme (her name is
a union of the words "Jesus" and "Me"), therefore, departs
from the norm in these significant matters. Her account, nevertheless, is
a powerful testimonial for the cause of Christian and Indian women's rights
that earns her the status - if not of a litterateur - the more important one
of a social reformer.
Feted at Frankfurt earlier this month, the
nun is now looking to publish a new book on her life as a woman who is 'different'
from the average while fighting a new battle: that against a hypothyroid malfunction.
