MY VISION FOR ICPA

A vision is different from a dream. A dream is nebulous, based on subjective experience, and driven either by love or fear. A vision is more objective, rooted in reality; one foresees a situation, based on current trends, and aspires towards a specific goal. We in the ICPA must be visionaries not dreamers. To find clarity in our vision we need to address ourselves to various ground realities: (a) The Role of the Media (b) Trends in Nation and Society (c) Our Common Legacy (d) The State of the Church.

A. ROLE OF THE MEDIA: I see a fourfold role of the media: 1. Informing 2. Influencing 3. Networking 4. Entertaining. The print media role in entertaining is limited to jokes, fillers or cartoons, while the electronic and visual media have a far greater stake in entertaining; so we could skip this part. Informing, or dissemination of news and views, is the major role of the press (print media). We need to reflect deeply on our priorities and constraints in this field, if we aspire to a vision for ICPA. Fidelity, or a search for truth, must be an overriding consideration, while informing.

Influencing is different from informing, because truth is the first causality. The goal of influencing is to get one’s message across by hook or by crook. This is the realm of propaganda – be it religious, social, political or commercial. It is often based on half-truths, which as we know, are more dangerous than a lie. This approach is used by advertising agencies to hook the consumers onto their products. It is used by fascists and fundamentalists to twist people to their point of view. Millions of ignorant or innocent people across the world are being influenced all the time. In our country the two most powerful influences are Consumerism and Communalism.

Networking is a critical area today, made so much easier by the technological revolution. Those organisations and individuals, who do not have the financial powers or infrastructure for the mainline electronic media, can nevertheless exercise the cheaper option of electronic networking. The SAR news bulletins are an excellent instance of networking. Therefore ICPA needs to focus on the two areas of INFORMING and NETWORKING.

B. TRENDS IN NATION AND SOCIETY: I do not intend to make an analysis of Indian society. It would take too long, and there are more competent people for that. However, there are two areas that ICPA could focus on – Communalism and Violence. ICPA must play a more important role in promoting Communal Harmony and a Culture of Peace. This is a tall order. But then, what are visionaries and missionaries meant for, if not to walk tall?

C. OUR COMMON LEGACY: We Indians are servile, and Catholics are docile. Indian Catholics, the laity in particular, is doubly subservient. The Brahminical order already held sway on Indian Society. When a handful of white traders came from distant shores they conquered our country and became the ruling elite. When foreign missionaries came to India, despite all their heroic sacrifices, they too became a part of the elite, the establishment. When the foreign missionaries got phased out, the brown missionaries (like the brown sahibs in the Indian bureaucracy) assumed all the trappings of power. Forty years after Vatican II we still have a unipolar, and hierarchically controlled church in India, with the laity a sonorous and subservient pygmy. The cleric (the lettered one) holds enormous sway over the layous (the illiterate commoner). It is not easy to jettison the baggage (legacy) or shake off this lethargy. But try we must, for we are visionaries.

D. THE STATE OF THE CHURCH: One can always turn the pages of the latest Catholic Directory of India to get a statistical overview of the institutional church. This is only a part of the picture, as it is reflective of just 0.68% of the Catholic Church (1:146) as we shall presently see. When we look at the statistics we become proud of our “activities”. This pride leads to insulation, isolation and insensitivity, ending in incompetence.

I share with you some unusual statistics taken from the Catholic Directory of India 1998 (the latest available). India has an inordinately high missionary to laity ratio of 1:146. This is almost five times the world ratio of 1:726. Those familiar with Pauline spirituality refer to weaknesses being converted into strengths. However, those who have undergone Ignatian Spirituality would know that our strengths become our weaknesses, because we leave them unguarded. I fear that the institutional strength of the Catholic Church will soon become its nemesis.

For all the talk of de-institutionalising the church, and breaking down structures after Vatican II, precisely the opposite has happened. From 1969 to 1990, parishes in India grew from 3513 to 6277 (79%); mission stations grew from 10025 to 17467 (74%); the Catholic population grew from 7,607,286 to 13,424,000 (76%); but institutions grew from 8,877 to a phenomenal 22,865 (158%); that is double the growth rate of the Catholic population and the parishes.

Inspite of this phenomenal growth in institutions, the service rendered to the Catholic community is abysmally low. A paper prepared by the All India Catholic Union (AICU) submitted to the CBCI in September 2001 indicates that only 25% of Catholic children and youth of school and college going age (3-21 years) are actually studying in Catholic institutions. Where are the missing 75%? What has the monolithic, hegemonous, Catholic Church got to boast about?

Let me give you another juicy bit of data from the Union Home Ministry’s report for 2001-02 on “Foreign Inward Remittance.” Here in Karnataka State, Christian NGOs received 471 Crore rupees of foreign aid in one year alone. It is not clear if Churches and institutions are counted among NGOs. Taking an estimate of Rs 400 crores per annum per State, the foreign money inflow to Christian churches, etc in one year alone could be Rs. 12,000 crores. Since Catholics form 73% of the Christian population, the Catholic share would be 8760 Crore rupees. Of the 1.6 Crore Catholics in India, we tom-tom that 60% are Dalits, that is 0.960 Crores. If we divide the annual foreign aid by the number of Catholic Dalits (8760 /.960) we find that it would amount to Rs. 9125 per Dalit Catholic per annum. Enough for their total emancipation. There would be no need to plead with the government for “reservations”.

What has all this got to do with the ICPA? If the ICPA is a Catholic organisation, it must address itself to the major concerns of the Catholic Church in India. It must address itself to the 60% Dalit Catholics, and must reach out to the 99.32% of the Church - the laity. If not, it is just one more elitist establishment, whose doors need to be battered open, as the Bastille was during the French Revolution.

STRIKING A BALANCE: The Biblical people had a threefold societal structure, with which we are familiar – Priest, King, and Prophet. What we are not familiar with is their dovetailing with the pillars of contemporary democratic society – Legislature, Executive and Judiciary. The Legislature (Priest) makes the rules, the Executive (King) actually rules, and the Judiciary (Prophet) interprets the rules in a specific case. The Press, referred to as the Fourth Pillar of democracy, is infact the modern extension of the prophetic office, and therefore should not be a part of the establishment – if it has to fulfil its prophetic office. When even the fourth pillar is wanting, the fifth sinister option emerges – referred to as the Fifth Columnist in the Second World War. In wartime they were spies and undercover operatives. In peacetime they are terrorists, fascists, or revolutionaries, who take the law into their own hands. This is the total collapse of the rule of law.

It is therefore critical to the system of checks and balances that the Fourth Estate exercises its prophetic office without fear or favour. Unfortunately, in the Catholic Church; Priest, King and Prophet all vest in the hierarchy. Hence the role of the Catholic Press assumes great significance. Is it willing to shoulder this responsibility? I hope and pray that the ICPA will show the way.

SOME AREAS OF CONCERN: I would like to point out certain areas where the Catholic Press could make efforts to improve:
* We are not Indian enough. We seem to have more foreign, than Indian news published. As Editor of Vishal Jagruti, I get the SAR News Bulletin. I am surprised that many interesting stories carried by SAR are not published in various Catholic periodicals that I subscribe to.
* We are too courteous! We shamelessly lift stories, features and photographs from other journals, with the cryptic by-line, “Courtesy …!” This is unethical.
* Pictures speak louder than words. Our journals are inadequate in photographs, icons, cartoons, and illustrations. We must become more picturesque. And please use Indian visuals for Indian stories, not blonde weterners.
* We are inured to soft news and friendly bytes – jubilees, celebrations and bishop’s itineraries. Could we have more hard news, which makes us sit up and think. Why do we fight shy of sensitive or controversial issues? We don’t hesitate to print reports on clerical paedophilia in America, but we won’t print it about Ajmer? Is it too close for comfort?
* Two successive editors of a prestigious Kolkata weekly were unceremoniously sacked, because the then archbishop, who “owned the newspaper”, wanted only “good news” to be published. Only two Catholic journalists – Allen Johannes and I, had then protested. Our appeal to the ICPA had then fallen on deaf ears. Is the ICPA still another acronym for HMV - “His Master’s Voice”?
* The Catholic Church, like most other human institutions, wallows in double standards. We are at liberty to lambaste politicians and political parties. It is called healthy criticism. But when it comes to our own we are immediately told not to criticise. After all “Charity reigns supreme”! Jesus condemned religious hypocrisy. Need I say more?

SAR NEWS: I have great appreciation for the SAR News bulletins. Nevertheless, there are a few suggestions.
* South Asian is mostly Indian, with a smattering from Pakistan, a little from Nepal, and silence from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, which have sizeable Christian populations.
* New bulletins should be typed in MS Word as attachments, and not as Body Text. It becomes easier to “cut and paste, or justify”, when working on a computer.
* The headlines are too long and unimaginative
* Could you avoid honorifics like Lordship, Grace, Father, etc?
* Please encourage more investigative journalism, and follow-ups. What happened to yesterday’s headlines?