An Indian Catholic’s crisis of faith

By Mathew John

New Delhi, Jan 3, 2022: Let me straightaway get it off my chest. My faith in my religion has waxed and waned, oscillating from fervent belief to deep skepticism. Much like the life-long smoker, I have given it up myriads of times and then inevitably returned to the habit. That is because I believe there is an omniscient Almighty holding sway over the universe, though I admit to occasional griping at the gratuitous suffering, cruelty and violence in the world that He has created and controls.

Additionally, faith has done for me psychologically what smoking did for Albert Einstein who said that it contributed “to a somewhat calm and objective judgement” in times of personal strife. Also, prodding one to a modicum of spirituality has been the nagging fear “of the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.”

I must, however, confess that of late, my faith in the Catholic Church as a structured religious hierarchy has been deeply shaken and now hangs by a thin thread.

For a deeply conflicted believer like me, religion is not merely scripture and the Word of God but is also about its practitioners and the example they set. The Bible says it in so many words: “Set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.”

Devotees seek exemplars of nobility and humaneness to inspire and sustain their faith. I have had a few role models who have, through sheer example, fortified my faith in religion but I shall mention only one.

In the school in Jaipur where I studied in the 1960s, Father Albert Wilzbacher, a Jesuit priest, taught generations of Xavierites the fundamentals of the English language and how! If we still did not make the elementary grade of writing and speaking it right, the fault was in us and not our phenomenal teacher.

Although he was American, he made sure he taught the language of the English, scrupulously eschewing Americanisms in spelling and phraseology. He was the gentlest soul, never raised his voice and yet, even the most wayward student was desperate to be in favor with him. He paid that much more attention to the weaker students; don’t I know!

Father Wilzbacher’s true greatness and humaneness were revealed beyond the confines of the classroom. He not only empathized with the travails of the underprivileged but did what he could to make it better for them. Once every week, along with a few of his students, he cycled to one of the bustees around the city, loaded with tins of powdered milk and other essentials which were distributed as equitably as possible among the hutment dwellers.

I can never forget his beatific smile as he engaged in playful banter with the children who clung to his cassock with their grimy hands. He loved them and they loved him back! He spent most of his free time with the dispossessed.

I know for a fact that he did not convert a single person to Christianity because he considered it a non-issue as he sincerely believed that, irrespective of faith, all were children of God. The only time that he gave a hint of molding my religious beliefs was when he handed me a book authored by the French theologian and philosopher, Teilhard de Chardin titled ‘The Phenomenon of Man,’ hoping, no doubt, that I would intellectualize my faith.

Needless to say, I glanced through a few pages of dense philosophy without understanding much and rapidly switched back to Harold Robbins. Father Wilzbacher failed to reform me, but through his sterling character and the way he lived his life, a derelict Christian became aware that the Christian faith was a force for good.

That faith has been badly shaken in the last few years. Thinking Christians are anguished by the horrific crimes committed by elements among the clergy to whom St Peter entrusted the keys of the Catholic Church. Woody Allen, the multifaceted comic genius, put it bluntly: “If Jesus came back and saw what was being done in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.”

It has been nothing short of a horror story involving the higher echelons in the Church hierarchy, so ghastly and so widespread that Cardinal Ratzinger exclaimed in outrage: “How much filth there is in the Church!” Pope Francis, in a missive to all Catholics in 2018 condemned “with sorrow and shame the atrocities committed by consecrated persons, clerics and all those entrusted with the mission of caring for the most vulnerable.”

The scale of the criminality among the clergy is mind boggling, to say the least. Roman Polanski, the great filmmaker is a fugitive from the law since 1977 and cannot enter America because of a sexual dalliance with an underaged girl, but his crime is kindergarten compared with the awful shenanigans of the holy men in robes.

In 2018, in Pennsylvania, USA, a grand jury report was released documenting the sexual abuse of over 1,000 children by 301 priests in the Pennsylvania diocese alone. In outraged response, a statement signed by more than 3,000 diverse Catholics from around the world demanded the resignation of all Catholic bishops in USA “as a public act of repentance and lamentation before God and God’s people.”

Likewise in Britain in 2020, an independent inquiry into child sex abuse reported that between 1970 and 2015, the Church received more than 900 complaints involving more than 3,000 instances of child abuse involving more than 900 individuals, including priests, monks and volunteers.

France, Australia and many Latin American countries have the same sordid tale to tell. The recent publication of an earth-shaking independent report which established that at least 333,000 children in France were victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and lay members of Church institutions over the last 70 years has compelled the French Government to step into the raging controversy with an executive order that Catholic priests report all child sexual abuse allegations to the police, including if they hear about it in the confessional.

This secular assault on the sanctity of the sacred sacrament of confession and penance has been widely applauded. In any case, the credibility of the clergy is so low in these countries that even devout Catholics have stopped going to the confessional.

Mercifully, the Catholic clergy in India has not been besmirched by the worldwide scandal of child abuse but the Bishop Mulakkal rape case has opened a can of worms that has seriously damaged the reputation of the Church. The controversial verdict of the Kottayam Sessions court acquitting the bishop has already been analyzed threadbare and is widely perceived as an absolute miscarriage of justice, so I shall not belabor that point.

I wish to raise other deeply troubling concerns. It would appear that the tainted bishop had the full might of the Church backing him, whereas the rape victim and her indomitable companions were divested of all religious duties, intimidated, and their reputations torn to shreds. The bishop’s acquittal is being celebrated as a vindication of the Church’s stance in the matter.

One cannot ignore certain unseemly happenings after the rape allegations came to light that reflect poorly on the bishop. On his return to Jalandhar after being released on bail in October 2018, he received a rousing welcome befitting a war hero, was showered with rose petals and garlands in what was, in the circumstances, an outrageous and unchristian display of vulgar gumption. Then in 2019, a close aide of the bishop was caught with Rs 9.66 crores in cash, another telltale sign of a sleazy set-up. There are allegations that lots of money exchanged hands to hush up the case.

A few years ago, an opinion piece appeared in the New York Times titled “Is the Catholic Church Beyond Redemption?” There can be no getting away from the stark reality that the Church is facing its gravest existential crisis, but one would like to believe that this dark hour will bring about transformational change for the common good.

It is indeed fortunate that Pope Francis, saintly and pragmatic, is there to spearhead the crusade for restoring the moral and spiritual authority of the Church. Just as Jesus Christ cleansed the temple by throwing out the merchants and moneylenders from its precincts, it is expected that the pontiff will start the redemptive process by ridding the Church of the criminal elements among the clergy.

And hopefully, the Church will become truly egalitarian by giving nuns a greater say in the affairs of the Church.

(The writer is a former civil servant. Views are personal)