By Varghese Alengaden
Indore, June 18, 2022: Two recent articles speak of how Hindutva forces easily trap bishops, priests and nuns by exploiting their ignorance.
Jesuit Father Vincent Perappaden wrote about the conclave organized by the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) Minority Morcha in Kerala for Catholic priests and nuns and another article by Nirmala Carvalho highlighted Bishop Thomas Dabre of Poona defending the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the umbrella body of Hindu nationalist groups.
Ever since Narendra Modi came to power with absolute majority in 2014 many Catholics – lay people, bishops, priests and nuns — started praising the new prime minister and speaking ill of the Congress party.
After Modi won the 2014 parliament election some Catholic bishops remarked during private conversations, “Congress party has made a mess of the country. Look at the corruption. Now let us give them (BJP) a chance.” I told them, “BJP will remain in power under Modi at least for the next 15 years. They are going to capture the majority of the states.” I had closely observed how Hindu nationalist group had followed a well-focused strategy and plan for several years.
I suggested to a prominent bishop, “It is important for us to have a paradigm shift in our missionary approach by preparing a new strategy and action plan to deal with the new challenges.”
He promised to discuss with other bishops and get back to me. Later I came to know that all bishops of the region unanimously said, “There is no need for any such a strategy now.”
Attacks against Muslims and Christians have intensified since the BJP came to power under Modi. However, the Church leaders have not initiated any steps to prevent and resolve the crisis the Church faces almost daily.
The United Christian Forum, an ecumenical group, recorded 505 incidents of such attacks in 2021 and 107 in the first five months of this year. However, the routine Church meetings at the local and national levels hardly discuss the sociopolitical context of India.
Instead, the Church spends much time organizing routine retreats, chapters and other conferences with little discussion about the threats and dangers the priests and religious face in their mission both in cities and villages. Most Church leaders were either indifferent or ignorant when the saintly and prophetic Jesuit priest – Father Stan Swami – was arrested or when he died in custody.
I have been crisscrossing the county for more than 40 years to conduct seminars, retreats and chapter animation for priests and religious. Whenever I asked them, “How many of you read the newspaper daily?” hardly five to six percent put up their hands. Asked about reading articles on the editorial page just one or two responded positively.
Most priests and nuns have no knowledge of the communal violence that took place all over India after the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992 or the massacre of thousands of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002.
The Church in India has always been indifferent to such tragedies. It was indifferent even when Christians were killed and Church institutions and houses of ordinary Christians were burned and destroyed in Kandhamal, Odisha, in 2008.
I have warned the Church personnel through my seminars and writings to not be complacent. Don’t be surprised if one day the churches in Goa were demolished. If Babri Masjid (mosque) could be demolished and the demand for mosques in Varanasi, Mathura and other places in India become louder, what would stop the forces from demanding the demolition of Goa churches that they allege were built after destroying Hindu temples during the Portuguese rule?
Christians and their leaders in Goa had fallen into the BJP trap during the state assembly elections. Do they regret it now?
Socializing with the RSS and BJP leaders by some priests and bishops does not save the Church.
Bishops, priests, nuns and some lay people feel happy when invited to meetings organized by the BJP and other Hindutva organizations. But they are ignorant of the Hindu groups’ ideology and strategies. Have the bishops and priests who praise the ideologies and friendship of RSS studied and analyzed their strategy? How many have read M S Golwalkar and Veer Savarkar to find out the ideology and strategy of RSS and Hindu organizations?
We always get disappointed when we address different groups of priests and Religious and ask them if they knew about ‘Sangh Parivar” and the RSS. Very few of them have heard about them.
Over the past 30 years we have conducted Christocentric leadership retreats and training programs for bishops, priests and religious who are in leadership positions to create awareness of the sociopolitical realities and help them prepare new strategies and action plans in the fast changing sociopolitical scenario.
The content of these sessions were based on these questions: ‘What would Jesus do if he were here? What is the mind of Christ? What is the heart of Christ?’ The entire program was to explain about the solution which Christ had suggested to the problems of all times: “Put the new wine in new wineskin.”
Priests, nuns and lay leaders rush to programs organized by RSS, BJP and other Hindutva organisations. The attraction is that these meetings are organized in five star hotels and they get the opportunity to take photographs with politicians and ministers. With all innocence, or rather foolishness, they share their telephone numbers, email and other personal details which the organizers use to trap them further.
These bishops, priests and religious fail to recognize the “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” They fail to follow the teaching of Christ ‘to be innocent like doves and cunning like serpents.’
Many principals who make excuses of lack of time to participate in sessions about practical value education and mentoring the youth are prompt in making time for an ‘education tour’ sponsored by book publishers. The attraction is that it is conducted in five star resorts in India or overseas.
The reason for the deterioration of spiritual values in the Church is due to drifting away from the way of Christ. The poverty of leadership, lack of clarity of vision, spiritual and intellectual bankruptcy of the Church personnel and leaders are due to the absence of contemplation (Dhyan Marg). Bishops, priests and religious who do daily chores (Karama Marg) feel complacent with the time they spend for rituals and various kinds of devotions. (Bhakti Marg).
Contemplation needs content. This content will be available from serious reading of books, articles, news of current issues. Information gathered and knowledge acquired should become content for contemplation (Dhyan Marg) which would make a person a Karma Yogi and visionary leader with spirituality.
Such people will be prophetic in their life and actions. They do not sell their souls under any circumstance. They always call a spade a spade to uphold truth. Today both the Church and country lack such leaders.
Beware of the traps being prepared by political parties, fundamentalists, market forces and ‘hired shepherds’ within the Church.
(Father Varghese Alengaden is the founder director of Indore-based Universal Solidarity Movement that strives to create a new India based on the values in the Indian Constitution. Father Alengaden has been working among young people of India for several decades.)
Then Jesus said, ” Father forgive them;for they do not know what they are doing.” (LK:23:34)
2 Corinthians 6:14-17. Don’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what fellowship do righteousness and iniquity have? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?
What agreement does Christ have with Belial? Or what portion does a believer have with an unbeliever?
What agreement does a temple of God have with idols? For you are a temple of the living God. Even as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk in them. I will be their God and they will be my people.” Therefore “‘Come out from among them, and be separate,’ says the Lord.
We also have too much money especially easy foreign funds, and too many money making institutions. Remember that too much of a good thing is ultimately not good. But a blind omniscient hierarchy and clergy cannot read the writing on the wall.
The Catholic Church in India suffers from the problem of plenty. It probably has the highest priests to people ratio in the world. We have more dioceses than the Philippines that has the largest Catholic population in Asia.
Alengaden’s analysis has identified the symptoms like not reading newspapers and editorials. He has not addressed the root causes. Pope Francis has said that clericalism is the greatest scourge in the church. The reforms of Vatican II have been systematically saboutaged, especially vis a vis the participation of the laity in the life and mission of the church.
Agree with Fr.Varghese,
Yes the Priests and Religious(I included) are very cautious of every move we make. It’s not a new phenomenon….!
We are scared to live the Gospel neither follow Jesus the liberator..!
We like to focus on sin and forgiveness compared to promoting peace and Justice seriously.
Those of us who take priestly and religious life seriously are considered ‘Radicals’ and hence kept away from any leadership roles. Those in the leadership try best not to rock the boat but sail through their period smoothly even if needed to sacrifice some.basic values…!
These days the FCRA is a powerful tools to keep the group in absolute silence and fear.
Next they will come for the institutions on which we have too much trust and dedication.
We better wake up soon or THEY will teach us in a hard way..!
I appreciate writer , let Christians Awaken. More Christians should be in politics.
The paradigm shift had long ago been indicated by RSS Spokesmen. “. Accept that all religions are equal or same in essence and so there is no need for conversion of Hindus . The native religion is enough for the nation “ So all can follow the religion of the Nation.
This fundamental issue is not touched by bishops, mainly because they may be ignorant or indifferent or inefficient to present the Church views. Either accept Jesus Christ as incarnate Son of the One and only living God OR accept him as an ordinary human like Mahatma or Mother Teresa.
Fr Varghese Alengaden has written a very pertinent article regarding the way in which some Church representatives naively flirt with Hindutva ideology and Hindutva leaders. They are playing with fire. They need to take a deeper look at the undistorted history of the Indian freedom struggle, the role of the RSS before and after independence, their ideology and literature, their strategy of spreading hatred and bigotry in order to gain power by destroying the harmonious, peaceful and secular fabric of our nation, and their dubious track record in important aspects (economy, trade, infrastructure development, job creation, medical facilities, education, justice, treatment of vulnerable sections of society – women, children, dalits, adivasis and minorities) during the last 8 years.
On the other hand, the use of the photo of Bishop Thomas Dabre juxtaposed with the title of this article is unwarranted. Bishop Dabre’s ideological stand vis-a-vis the RSS and the statement he recently made can be questioned, but the suggestion that he is a ‘hired shepherd’ is unfair, unjust and untrue. Those who know him closely can vouch for the fact that he is a person of integrity and would not deliberately work against the Church’s interests. Hence I request the editor of Matters India to change the photo associated with this article.
Book of Revelations and all Our Lady’s apparitions clearly warn against following Bishops, clergy, and religious (incl nuns) who will lead the laity down the wrong path!!
One thing is certain – our people, whether clergy, religious, bishops or normal layfolk, fall very easily into traps of every kind.
Frankly, it is one thing to study ALL RELIGIONS; but obtaining a doctorate in the philosophy or whatever concerning a non-Christian saint is stretching things a bit too far. Instead of doing a PhD in a topic related to Sant Tukaram, Perhaps Bishop Thomas Dabre should have done one on the effect of the 2000-year presence in India on Indian society in general and on non-Christian religions in particular. That would have steeled his resolve not so much to shun RSS ideology as to be constantly wary of such organizations that have no respect for faiths other than their own. Indeed, in what way can Tukaram influence the Christian shepherding of a Catholic flock, be it in Bombay, Vasai, Poona or wherever? How has setting up Ganesh-like idols of Jesus and doing aarti made a difference to the Christian worshipper? How has the participation of Catholic priests and religious in non-Christian religious rituals and dances like garba changed the attitude of supposedly religious organizations of any faith persuasion towards us and our religion?
Fr Varghese you r indeed Xcellent! Yes, it’s hightime V women religious wake up n open our eyes to d reality around…hence m convinced that V need to read d daily newspapers to know wats happening….
It’s true how we are falling into the trap of the RSS and BJP agenda. The leaders of our Institutional Church lack critical constructive thinking….We cannot be with and against those who are destructive….the Constitution of our country is being tampered with…our rights are being denied….those on the periphery are living in inhuman manner…dissent is not accepted…
Is this the country we were born into. Wake up we the followers of Jesus. Fr. Alengaden is a prophetic voice…..can we heed to his voice…we still have a chance….
“I suggested to a prominent bishop, “It is important for us to have a paradigm shift in our missionary approach by preparing a new strategy and action plan to deal with the new challenges.”
Will Fr Alengaden be kind enough to share with the readers what paradigm shift, new strategy and action plan he suggested to the prominent bishop?
The writer seems to be filled with anti-BJP and anti-RSS venom. Articles like this one will cause more harm to ordinary Christians who want to live in peace and harmony with others particularly so as it comes from a priest.
Not many Hindus are able to distinguish from one another the myriad Christian factions that are active in India. Catholics have for the most part moved away from conversion to running businesses like schools, colleges and hospitals which are mostly profit centres. But various other groups from Born Agains to multinational churches are active in conversion. And what are their staple slogan “only through Jesus salvation “. Now think for a momemt, isn’t it an insult to Hindu gods?
The writer asks what would Christ do if he were to come back now? The short answer is nothing. But
he will surely think to himself, after seeing the motley of prayers and rituals. “Have I gone mad or all natives have gone mad? (borrowed dialogue from a Malayalam movie). This he will do because gentiles – that is us are worshipping him when he never wanted his message to be taken gentles. (Mathew 10:5).
In conclusion I would like to say that people like Alangaden
may not love BJP and RSS but at least do not rub them in the wrong place. Even secular Hindus may turn anti-Semitic.
Very true. Church needs to
Know the mind of Christ