Indian Catholic Matters is proud to present an insightful paper titled — The Catholic Church in India: The Harbinger of Hope — which was presented by Mr. Jacob Punnoose IPS (Retd) at the recently held 33rd plenary meet of Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) in Bengaluru.
Mr. Jacob Punnoose IPS (Retd), 1975 batch, is former DGP & State Police Chief of Kerala, India and Vigilance Director. He was instrumental in starting the People Friendly Janamaithri Suraksha (community policing) Project of Kerala as well as the vastly popular Student Police Cadet Project which is now nationally adopted.
Beginning today, we will run a 4-part series his paper in the next few days. Extracts from the presentation:
“Let your hope keep you joyful, be patient in your troubles, and pray at all times. (Romans 12:12):
To the Christian, Hope is neither a passive wish nor an idle reverie. It is the trigger for positive action to launch the mission of witness and mercy. Hope is central to being a Christian[1]. Christians, steadfast in the Faith, are energised by Hope to act with mercy and Love for all. When Hope does not kindle our spirit, we get mired in despair. A world without Hope is the equivalent of Hell[2]! Therefore Hope we must, even when crises loom.
Christianity is no stranger to crises: the church has survived many. Jesus had foreseen it. Blessed is one, He said, when reviled in His name[3]. The burden of witness is indeed heavy: He himself bore the Cross, but even in the last moments gave the hope of paradise to one beside Him. Redemption is always about hope amidst gloom. Thus the Church, in its redemptive mission becomes the harbinger of hope. Hence the Church is now called upon to initiate dynamic action to dispel fear and kindle hope to guide and vitalise its members, both as citizens and as Christians.
Also Read:
The Catholic Church in India: Asserting our Indian Identity
The Catholic Church in India: The Salt of the Earth
The Catholic Church in India: Evolving New Paradigms for Hope
CONSTITUTIONAL ETHOS – UNITE & GOVERN: The success of democracy enthuses our hopes as citizens of India. Diversity was always the reality of India; and Unity, its magic. The optimistic[4] acceptance of unified pluralism in the Constitution energised India’s emergence and survival as a vibrant democracy. “Unite & Govern” replaced “Divide & Rule” as the shibboleth sustaining democratic governance. An all-pervasive uniformity sustained by authoritarian regimentation is anathema to the Spirit of India[5]. Our culture is a great river of myriad moods, ever-vibrant, ever different, “ever changing, ever flowing and yet ever the same[6]”.
For India to survive, the Constitution must prevail. Half a billion of the world’s poorest[7] people live here. If constitution fails them and bigotry prevails, the dreams of dignity, justice, progress and prosperity for the poor would evaporate in the cauldron of communal conflict. Therefore the Church must constantly exhort and support those who guide the nation to preserve the unity of India by upholding constitutional morality. Otherwise chaos would ensue. We stand for amity, not merely because we want to be safe, but because violence will cause the poor to perish.
CONDEMNING TERROR AND VIGILANTISM: The church must actively condemn and oppose both Terrorism and Vigilantism. Terrorism is an expression of desperation; it is the negation of Hope. Vigilantism must also be exposed as terror in disguise. Both challenge the ideals of the Constitution. Venom, rather than virtuous spirituality, dominates both. Mouthpieces of both groups deride the constitutional ethos. As a church, we also must be conscious of the fact that Terror stalks the earth masked as Faith. Unbridled religious fundamentalism causes a few to stray from religious virtuosity and slip into terror. No religion should tolerate the fury of the fanatic. As a church, we must discourage fanaticism and intolerance in our own midst. We are taught that those who wield the sword shall perish by it. As Catholics in contemporary India, we must affirm that religious freedom should not be misused to further designs of terror and condemn religious extremism in any form in any religion including ours.
To be continued tomorrow…
Footnotes:
[1] 1 Cor 13:13: And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.
[2] Dante: Divine Comedy: the gate of Hell bears an inscription with the phrase “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”
[3] Mat 5:11: Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
[4] Democracy gives space to all divisive streams to articulate opposition. Many had predicted that immense diversities would be fatal contradictions in an incipient democracy and that unable to withstand divisive pressures, the union would collapse.
[5] Swami Vivekananda; World Parliament of Religions (1893): I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. …. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions.. I am proud.. that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to Southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. . “
[6] Jawaharlal Nehru; Last Will and Testament (1964)
[7] 20 percent of Indian population live with less than 2 PPP dollars a day and 50 % live with less than 3.1 PPP dollars: Global Extreme Poverty: by Max Roser and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina First published in 2013; substantive revision March 27, 2017.