Freedom from the shackles of the Church.

[Shree Vargese Pamplanil has correctly diagnosed the ailments that afflict the church today. I was almost surprised to note how exactly he has mentioned the various topics my wife and I were discussing last night before we fell asleep. The occasion was the golden jubilee celebrations of one of the members of the family, who is a nun. We were discussing how most members of the family were forced in a very subtle way to arrange a pompous ceremony, feeding almost 300 people, relations, priest and nuns.
We were also commenting on the inability of our own people to acquire any worthwhile knowledge on any matter that has to do with the society because they are not inclined to read any stuff that is not published by the church media. Most families in our knowledge are content with Shalom publications and Vanitha. We never see a new book on their tables. Even if we sometimes purposely hand over a new periodical or a thought provoking book, it would be pushed aside or made to disappear from the table, so that the adolescent kids don’t come in touch with them. All this is the result of the training they receive from the church. Generations grow in this stagnant way, so that the general IQ of the Christians falls below the average. They are not in a position to cope with any new idea, personal or social.

The strictness with which the church imposes the so called sacraments is another way of subjugating the faithful to spiritual slavery. The new generation grows up as totally incapable of getting involved in the process of economic and social growth of the country. The whole energy of the faithful is wasted on the futile effort to ensure entry into a heaven that the church promises as reward for the miserable and colorless life led on this earth in the constant surveillance of the immature and selfish clergy.
Thanks you, Vargese Mathew, for this lucid analysis of the present day church. – Zacharias Nedunkanal, asso. editor, CCV.]

Many non-priestly members of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, as a consequence of their upbringing and unwillingness to think things through rationally, abide by and subscribe to the dictates of the clergy. They dutifully attend Sunday masses and other functions of the Church regularly as a matter of habit and routine as waking up in the morning, defecating and having ablutions. They baptise their infants, make their young ones to confess before the clergy so called sins as frivolous as pilfering chocolates, having fights with their siblings, throwing up tantrums and other silly matters. One has to put up with hours long rites and ceremonies of the Church in the name of receiving the so-called sacraments, baptism, holy communion, matrimony, burial in the church compounds etc. Catholic children are required to undergo hours, days, weeks, months and years of indoctrination in the guise of catechism, a must for remaining as Catholic. The methods of the Church seem to be calibrated to ensnare the gullible believer in the ever widening and intricate web of mind control in order to make them behave like drugged zombies. Catch them young appears to be preferred modus operandi. Many attend festivals and novenas in honour of a plethora of saints. Most of these white saints have been imported to India by the Portuguese, the French, the Irish, the Italians and other Europeans. Saints such as Antony, Christopher, George, Sebastian, Jude, et al appear to be fictional characters. Most of the saints of the Catholic Church are typically “anti-pleasure” votaries, be they are men or women. A good number of the male saints, such as Antony and Augustine were, in their youth and prime of life , prolific indulgers in all sorts of carnal and other pleasures; they might have turned ascetic when tired or on suffering from incurable ventral diseases or out of sense of guilt or shame in later life. Women who abjure sex are favourites for being considered for sainthood. Of late different orders in the Kerala Church vie with each other to make their deceased members saints with the aim of money spinning. Incidentally, drunkards, criminals, fraudulent elements and other unsavoury characters seem to find sanctuary in certain charismatic outfits.

A large segment of the faithful, by and large, lead a rather prosaic life. The earlier generations had to do backbreaking manual labour for economic survival. Their exposure to the outside world was limited to whatever was dished out by 'Katthanars' who ruled the roost as dictators overseeing all aspects of a believers’ life. Education at best was confined to Ezhutthukalaries presided over by Assans. Schooling, if any, was up to the primary level. Spending time, energy and money for education was considered an utter waste claiming that these scarce resources better be utilised for cultivating tapioca,yams and cash crops like coconuts, rubber, pepper, ginger etc. Questioning the diktats of the Church was an unpardonable crime leading to ostracisation from the community, denial of sacraments of the church such as baptism, weddings and above all prohibition of burial in the church cemetery. Thus ordinary folks without clout of wealth and connections were forced to toe the dotted line. They are mortally afraid of the priests believing that their curses would bring unbearable calamities in their lives. (Even today this irrational thinking persist among many, especially womenfolk). If one carefully peruse the Jewish and Christian literature, cursing stand out as the favourite way of venting frustration by priests, parents and elders; probably cursing would have enabled them to get get rid of the foul odour of their mouths, if nothing else. If cursing could annihilate every things dear the sun, nuclear weapons would not have necessary to settle the scores between countries. Most of the believing kind suffer from morbid insecurity and anxiety . Always buffeted by real or perceived problems, insatiable yet unfulfilled desires, they resort to prayers to their favourite deities imploring them to improve their condition and solve their problems. In any society, only a few are equipped with the requisite knowledge and skill to attain at least a part of what they aspire for. The rest fall prey to the tantalising promises of clever pedlars of religious nostrums and mantras. They genuflect , bow and offer priest- prescribed prayers and litanies to the human made, inert statues and pictures of the saints of various ilk foolishly thinking that these artefacts can solve their problems and grant their, often, frivolous wishes. The realty is that no human or otherworld agency can offer solutions to all human dilemmas. The supplications of the foolish to their favourite gods or saints for boons and blessings most often turn out to be failures, yet they persist egged on by their priests.

An optimistic outlook with the channeling of one’s positive energy and optimism along with interplay of probabilities, may some times, result in achieving at least a few of the things sought. The priestly class latch on the unbridled hopes and dreams of the frustrated ninnies and the credulous in order to lead, quite often, a cozy, comfortable, if not luxurious life, without any real effort. They don’t sweat their brows, soil their hands or dirty their cloths. The lure of free creature comforts and the deemed respect accorded to the clergy in the society, could be the motivation for some to opt for priestly profession.

An average Catholic person is inculcated with all sorts of fears and phobias from the cradle by uneducated superstitious ridden mothers and other elders especially grand mothers, great aunts and others. The most frequent word a child hears is “NO”. Self confidence, self worth and initiative is often killed in the bud. A person's nature given intrinsic abilities and talents are discounted. From the childhood a Catholic person is made to believe that everything good in life is gained not by one’s merits or efforts but solely by the grace of God or through the intercession of a particular saint or an angel.

Every child is compelled to be a conformist, part of amorphous crowd; individuality and independence is generally nipped in the bud. A Catholic child is made to respect the clergy and obey their commands implicitly for they are the “anointed” representative of God and the custodians of all wisdom under the sun; they never err; their curse is very potent and can do incalculable harm. In some families the clergy have more authority over children than even the parents. The Catholic view is that body is the abode of evil; sexual organs cause all sorts of sins leading to hell and damnation. Boys are warned of girls for they are the decedents of Eve who by her guiles made Adam to be driven out of Eden, the Paradise. Girls are told to keep away from boys. Attraction of opposite sexes are devil’s deeds and hence intrinsically bad. In order to avoid committing sexual evils -Satan’s temptations – one should walk with head bowed down, fast and pray and offer penances. Adolescents are made to feel dirty and guilty and ashamed of their sexuality. This low assessment of self generally persist in a person's life throughout; it may even as well adversely affect one’s married life. Even the sexual unions within the marriage verge towards sin, if in the process they derive pleasure, couples are taught. Love marriage is frowned upon and discouraged as deviant behaviour; there is no place for love in a marriage; the only aim of marriage is begetting of children; couples should refrain from showing too much affection for each other. Sexual urges are the handiwork of Satan whose only aim is to keep the humans away from God’s grace. Sexual activity should be conducted strictly in the way prescribed by the clergy; variations in this regard are mortal sins. Having sex outside the wedlock is more heinous than looting, illicit liquor making, cheating, spreading canards against others and other crimes against humanity. Denial sex by some misguided wives could be the cause of their husbands seeking gratification elsewhere through illicit liaisons. Child molestation, alcoholism , consumption of fatal but pleasure inducing drugs, gambling etc. could possibly be some of the alternative avenues sought by the sexually deprived and frustrated.

The half-educated priests and nuns propagate that everything of this world is bad, only Heaven is good where one is free of all worries and wants, where singing of “ hosannas” to the” three in one God” and the ever virgin Madonna is the most happiness giving activity. On pain of eternal burning in hell with all sorts of unimaginable torments every faithful should attend the tedious and meaningless Sunday masses without fail; all Catholic children should dutifully attend catechism classes and above all, the laity should donate sacks of money to the Church as demanded by the clergy under various guises and pretexts. What happens to the funds collected is a mystery as unfathomable as that of the Trinity. Unless one does frequent confessions for indeterminate sins, mortal and silly, one will be condemned be in the state of disgrace in the eyes of God. The Catholic Church seems to have depicted its God as a voyeur and a peeping Tom constantly vigilant as to ensure that all sexual unions of Catholic couples are done without joy, brief, prime and proper solely for the purpose of producing progeny in the largest number for doing service to the Church. One can take one pick of sins for self flagellation and mortification. The believers are made to bear unbearable load of guilt which can be assuaged by frequenting novenas in honour of umpteen saints, attending of various charismatic circuses the focal point of which is guilt, gore and hellfire; bible conventions and retreats to ruminate on imaginary sins and undertaking of all varieties of fasting for forgiveness of sins of the flesh. If one undergoes these extricating penances, one may or may not attain ‘nirvana’ on the whims of the unseen God. What a horrible scenario.

The stark fact remains that the Catholic countries are laggards in economic and social development : in Europe – Spain, Portugal and Ireland – almost the entire American continent south of Mexico, Philippines etc. These regions are generally overpopulated and environmentally degraded, decease ridden and crime infested. Land and other natural resources are in the custody of a few, whom the Church supports and draw sustenance. There may be an inverse relationship between Catholicism and economic and social back- wardens.

If the Kerala Catholic community wants economic and social progress they better keep themselves away from their tyrannical and predatory Church establishment. Subsistence farming widely prevalent in most parts of Kerala, may be on the way out being uneconomical and unsustainable. The future of traditional agriculture is bleak so also conventional manufacturing. The fourth Industrial Revolution based on artificial intelligence and robotics, genetic engineering, nano-technology and renewable energy is replacing hitherto methods. Economic growth in developed countries has almost stagnated because of the failure to reconfigure the factors of production in efficient optimal way. International mobility of highly skilled has already occurred. In the emerging economies, the more skilled and efficient youngsters are migrating to urban centres in search of employment with better prospects. Only the mediocre will remain in the hinterland. In another few decades rural areas will be gradually deserted. Traditional family structure is on the way out. As has happened in the developed secular societies, places of religious worship will be put to use for alternative purposes.

The ostrich minded Catholic priesthood is living in a fools paradise tenaciously holding on to the more than five thousand years-old archaic world view. The ever greedy Shylocks of the Church seem to be solely concerned with money grabbing and in the process making an average believer’s life more and more difficult and miserable. It may be time to wake up and face the realities.

Varghese Pamplanil
Mob. 9447152534
Email: pamplanil@gmail.com