Nunc dimiticus nuncio

By chhotebhai

Kanpur, Aug 31, 2020: This title would be intriguing for those who don’t know Latin. Neither do I! It is the title of the prayer in the Breviary that priests are expected to recite before going to sleep at night.

It is the prayer of the Prophet Simeon who had been waiting unendingly for the coming of the Savior. “The Holy Spirit was with him and had assured him that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s promised Messiah” (Lk 2:26). When Jesus was presented in the Temple on the 40th day of his birth (count 40 from 25th December and you come to 2nd February) Simeon at last laid eyes on him. It was then that he said his final prayer, the Nunc Dimiticus. “Now Lord you have kept your promise, and you let your servant go in peace” (Lk 2:29).

I was reminded of this prayer because of the similarity of the words Nunc and Nuncio. News has just come in that Archbishop Giambattista Di Quattro, the Papal Nuncio to India, has been transferred to Brazil. This nuncio has been in India since March 2017, and his tenure has been one of the most disappointing and frustrating, for people who have tried to contact or interact with him.

Several of them, me included, would now be at peace at his departure, just as Simeon was at peace at the arrival of the savior. This is why I chose to title this piece “Nunc Dimiticus Nuncio”!

Ironically this nuncio was named after John the Baptist, the man who literally stuck his neck out for speaking the truth, and paid the price for it; being beheaded at the behest of a dancing girl, the daughter of Herodias (cf Mat 14:1-12). The haunting image of the beheading has remained etched in my memory because about four years ago a group of us citizens had gone to meet the governor of Uttar Pradesh at the Raj Bhawan (Governor’s Palace) in Lucknow. Before our appointment I noticed a painting of the beheading on the wall in the waiting hall. Probably made by some European painter during colonial times.

What a contrast between the Hebrew John the Baptist and his Italian counterpart Giambattista! He didn’t ever stick his next out, even when the very image of the Church in India was at stake. Some of the worst scandals have erupted during his tenure and he did precious little to stem the rot.

First we had the Frightening Franco Mulakkal rape case. It was only after intense pressure from multiple quarters that the nuncio suspended him, but allowed him to stay on and enjoy all the perks of office in Jalandhar. When the five nun witnesses were transferred it was again only after huge protests that he stayed their transfers. Then there was Bishop Galela Prasad of Cuddapah. It was only after receiving 24 different documents establishing concubinage and alienation of church funds, did he act to suspend the bishop. He has not been seen or heard of since.

The next case was in March 2019, again in Mulakkal’s Jalandhar diocese, where a priest admitted to cash transactions of 30 crore (300 million) rupees. This was when the Model Code of Conduct was in force for the Lok Sabha elections. No action was taken by the Church, with the acting Bishop Agnelo Gracias, giving the priest businessman a clean chit.

The next horrifying case is Bishop K A William of Mysore. 37 priests of the diocese had written several letters to him alleging the murder of two priests of the diocese, kidnapping and sexual molestation of a woman employee, siring of two children by William from two different mistresses, and transferring cash and kind to them. Several other local resident, activist groups, Justice Michael Saldanha (Retd) and I too wrote umpteen letters to him. They all fell on deaf ears. Phone calls also remained unattended.

Critics of the nuncio have questioned the raison d’être of his presence. An ambassador, like the nuncio, either issues visas or oversees bilateral trade. In the case of the Vatican these issues do not exist.

The moot question therefore is – What is the role of the nuncio? Surely it is to see to the larger interests of the Catholic community in the country. If, as in the case of the person under reference, he fails to do so then he has forfeited his right to be here. In my last letter to him I had mentioned the precedence of the Papal Nuncio to Ireland in 2012. He was unceremoniously packed off by the Irish Government (predominantly Catholic) for failing to take a stand on clerical pedophilia. Had this nuncio not been transferred now, several reformist and activist groups in the church were planning to petition the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) for his removal. I myself had already sounded out a contact in the MEA for this.

Di Quattro’s insulting insolence was in sharp contrast to his predecessor Archbishop Salvatore Pennacchio. When his attention was drawn to the bishop of my diocese of Allahabad illicitly consecrating a Protestant bishop, he cracked down hard on what was best a matter of ecclesiastical indiscipline.

This incident occurred on November 4, 2012. I too had written to the nuncio and also referred to it in an article “Mortals and Morals” published in various journals in December 2012. The nuncio acted fast and furious. By January 31, 2013, the bishop was forced to resign. He then sought refuge in a neighbouring diocese, where his uncle was the bishop. But he is not allowed to celebrate the Eucharist in public, or to administer any sacraments, including baptism and reconciliation.

Looking back I would say that this bishop had not committed any crime. He had committed an indiscreet act that may have remained hidden. Unfortunately, that illicit consecration was splashed in a full front page advertisement in the Hindustan Times the next morning. So the cat was out of the bag.

Not all nuncios have been as obdurate as Di Quattro. I was elected the National President of the All India Catholic Union on Pentecost Sunday in 1990. Shortly after, I visited Delhi to request Monsignor Lucio da Veiga Coutinho, the CBCI Deputy Secretary General, to be our Ecclesiastical Advisor. At that time Father Vincent Concessao, the then parish priest of the Cathedral, invited me for the farewell party of the Nuncio, Archbishop Agostinho Caciavillan (since made cardinal).

He had read my election manifesto, and took me aside to discuss some issues. I then requested him to inaugurate our new AICU office in Delhi which he graciously did. At the time he was the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps so he hosted a farewell party for them at the Ashoka Hotel and invited me too. In my shabby kurta pyjama I was not inclined to wine and dine with the glitterati.

As fate would have it, I had driven down to Gajraula, about 200 km from Delhi, where three nuns had been raped, in a Matador van provided by the Indian Social Institute. My good friend Father John D”Cunha, was the minister of the CBCI Centre and he insisted that I stay there. Late evening, when I returned to the Centre all sweaty and dusty, I found it locked, as everyone was at the Ashoka. So perforce I hopped into a fume spewing auto rickshaw and reached the Ashoka, where I felt like a fish out of water. Of course a few priests and nuns, in the midst of their wine and olives, did enquire about the poor nuns in Gajraula.

Sometime in 1976, when I felt called by the Lord, a senior priest in Madras wrote to me suggesting that I become a priest and join the Vatican diplomatic corps. I had absolutely no intention of doing so, and politely declined. Had I accepted, today somebody would be praying a Nunc Dimiticus for me, or I too would have been wining and dining in a posh hotel.

As I look again at the shaggy head of the Baptist, and the clean shaven image of his Italian namesake sitting majestically on a throne, I pray for the dethronement and denouement of all those who have bartered away the truth for the false pride and prestige or fleeting titillation as King Herod did. Nunc Dimiticus Nuncio.

(The writer was the National President of the All India Catholic Union from 1990-1994.)