By Noella de Souza
Mumbai, August 9, 2022:
And Mary said, I’m bursting with God-news; I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.…
…His mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him.
He bared his arm and showed his strength, scattered the bluffing braggarts.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor sat down to a banquet; the callous rich were left out in the cold.
He embraced his chosen child, Israel; he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.’
(Luke 1:46-54).
That, in a nutshell, is the story of the prophetic struggle of a simple community of six members of the Congregation of the Mother of Carmel who routed the clergy in their parish, and brought them down from their thrones. Sister Anne Jaise and her companions took on the mighty hierarchy who used fraudulent means to satisfy their greed for money. It took the sisters eight long years to get justice but at the end they could say, “The Lord has done marvels for us, Holy is His name”.
The storyline is similar to others in Church milieus around the country. It is not an isolated incident, and has to be recognized as such: sisters have their mission in their own property; the parish clergy try to usurp the sisters’ land; the sisters try to negotiate, and when that fails, they go to, what we consider, our ecclesial ‘leaders,’ the hierarchy are indifferent; the sisters hesitate to go to civil courts for fear of spoiling the name of the Church they love and serve.
Sisters are usually considered second class citizens, unable to handle their own matters, and sometimes sisters do give that impression. But not so this small band of sisters in sleepy Vypin Island. They offer a twist in this familiar tale.
These brave women overcame the fear of authority that women religious experience in dealing with the hierarchy and clergy. They doggedly persevered in an atmosphere that comes from the order traditionally established, where the authority of the clergy/hierarchy is considered as final without necessarily having a process of dialogue and consultation. They exposed the manipulation and misuse of the “obedience” expected of women religious, to promote injustice.
The Narakkal story is not only a story of struggle against ecclesiastical powers but also against the weak leadership of the congregation, which succumbed to the treachery and corruption of that set of clergy and hierarchy.
Their leadership did not help to recover the own property of the congregation. Instead the CMC Leadership agreed to close down the Narakkal convent and hand over the whole property with the schools, to the diocese. It would be interesting to know what the motivation for such action was. Was it because of fear as already mentioned above, or their powerlessness?
These sisters have done a marvelous job in questioning their clergymen who see but do not recognize their contribution. More so because there is a tendency to follow the beaten track and not even pose pertinent questions to existing male leadership in the Church induces a dependency and a passivity which dulls the creative spark of initiative and the ability to break new ground in the field of mission. Women religious must be emancipated from a childish dependency in order to become mature in this respect.
The constant appeal of the sisters was to be treated with respect and dignity, not subservience. This they showed through their action. At every step of the way they worked their way through official channels of communication and action. They approached then diocesan bishops and the major archbishop of Ernakulam-Angamaly for protection and justice, but the bishops were either indifferent or supportive of the parish priests. Are these our leaders or do they just further their imperialism at our cost, so that they remain ‘princes’ of the Church!
There are many lessons to be learnt from this very powerful story:
It is when a mission can witness to collaborative action on the part of bishops, clergy, women religious and parishioners that the kingdom of God has a greater opportunity to flourish and witness to the living presence of God-with-us. Do our leaders realize this?
We see very clearly that good intentions are not enough. It is important to know civil and ecclesiastical law, and study documents to acquaint us with the civil administrative system. All this helped the sisters in their fight. Empowered with knowledge and competence, they built up a team of professional consultants to help them deal with the legal protocol they had to become acquainted with. It is when there is a lack of trust within the church itself that the legal system of the country becomes a better yardstick to sort out problems. To this end the Supreme Court sided with them.
How can we work towards an attitude of greater trust and confidence in one another so as to live a spirit of dialogue and collaboration, which is the strength of our joint mission? I would like to make a few recommendations:
1. Since there is an unequal balance of power in the relationships between the bishops, clergy and the sisters, which is at the root cause of difficulties in working together, a forum for dialogue and reconciliation which helps both sides to look at problem situations with objectivity, mutual understanding and a sense of the purpose of mission, would be valuable.
2. Contracts between the parties concerned, at the start of the mission/project, would aid to make situations, goals, mode of working and remuneration clear to all, and hence avoid occasions of conflict.
3. A regional committee for Collaboration and Reconciliation could be set up. The first step is a dialogue between the bishop of the diocese and the major superior of the congregation concerned in case of a problem. If the problem cannot be resolved at that level, it could then be taken to the regional level. The role of the regional committees would be not just addressing problems, but also promoting activities which could create a better understanding of our calling and our joint mission, so as to be more faithful witnesses of the Lord in the reality of our times.
Prophetic stories like the Narakkal one are invaluable, because these sisters have forged a way through our mundane routine of religious life to tell us through their actions that another way of praying is possible. What’s different you might ask? Their deep faith in the Divine in which their resolute perseverance and their desire for justice, was rooted. It enabled them to see things through to the end. Therein lies the prophetic inspiration.
By making public their struggle, the Narakkal sisters have made a path breaking move. They are challenging all of us to publicize our prophetic struggles and success stories, so that more women religious will be encouraged to seek justice, and bring the church to truly live its synodal mission. Only then can we all sit down at the Banquet of God and hear those most looked-for words of the gospel: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things; enter into the joy of thy Lord’ (Mt 25:23).