On Chicago Meet, and Sin & Guilt – Jacob Macwan
Jacob Macwan, Bombay, Responds To Chicago Aug.10 Keynote Speech
Our immense gratitude and appreciation to dear Jacob, a CCV columnist, who in spite of old age and illness finds time to read and respond to happenings at Chicago meet. May his good will and concern for Church reform become contagious and prompt others to follow his example.
Catholic Church=Oxymoron
Any one who is a reader of (CCV) ‘Church Citizens’ Voice, is ipso facto, a member of the Church Reform movement whether in Chicago, Kerala, Mumbai or anywhere else in the world. There are any number of particular Churches, Churchianities and Christianities, but followers of Jesus the Cattle-shed-born who projected himself as the SON OF MAN alone, the Universal Man, deserves to be called real Catholic(Universal).
Jesus was not only born in Cattle shed but became one with the CATTLE CLASS, the poor, homeless, abandoned and suffering by emptying himself to do foot-washing service to them. He never founded a new religion or called himself a Christian either. Therefore Catholicism is an Oxymoron, a living contradiction, like “cruel kindness,” or “living death”, Open secret or foolish wisdom, since Catholic means ‘Universal’ while its members are limited to registered persons in the Catholic churches only and so very much limited to card carrying members only. Jesus the Son of Man instead embraces the whole of humanity.
You are brothers & Sisters only
Stop being a Knows-not who knows-not he knows-not. Start seeing, “we are all brothers and sisters only”, and every one superior to every one else, in one thing or other, and therefore bound to look upon our neighbor as a GURU to learn from. Is not all the knowledge you have acquired less than just two GRAINS OF SAND on a sea shore or two drops of water in the sea, compared to all what is there for you to learn and should be trying to learn? What then have you to boast about. Be humble and learn from every one else. All of them are your teachers. james kottoor, editor, CCV.
Read below Jacob Macwan on Chicago Meet
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Since he declares he knows not and obviously he knows he knows not; according to Lady Burton (God bless her if there is a God) he falls into the second category of being simple and so we need to teach him. In his inimitable style he has declared that instead of imparting knowledge to them, he was open to learn from each one of those present at the meet, even a grave digger; not that there were many grave diggers present there. I can very well say that what he can learn from a grave digger is how to dig his own grave!
Coming to serious matters now, the speaker awowedly wants to discuss three points: 1. The Augean stables of the Catholic church stinking with the clergy sex abuse scandal, 2. The church of Constantine contrasted with the non-reformable church of sacristy exploiting the poor and marginalised, and 3. The community of cattle class Christians. If we think deeply, the three points converge into just one point of Constantinian church taken over by the Roman emperor Constantine by restructuring it into multiple folds of creamy layers of hierarchy giving them a taste of imperial splendour and glory, wallowing in wealth and power and sexual indulgence showing off with shining gay robes and impressive titles like Eminence, Excellence, etc. with their serial celebrations of feasts with gay abandon; the poor cattle class faithful left to pay obeisance and feel privileged to kiss the rings of the prelates hoping to get divine blessings for their families by fawning sycophancy.
The KCRMA and others of their ilk are trying to reform/transform the Catholic church, but it has to start with sweeping clean the dust of empire accumulated on the throne of Peter ever since the time of Constantine. Pope John XXIII convened Vatican Council II expressly for this purpose, but what has it achieved? The Know–Nothing genius has found an apt analogy for the present day Catholic church in the Malayalam word Kuthhazhinga Pustakam, meaning a much handled tattered old book, whose stitches have come undone and whose pages are fluttering hither-thither aimlessly.
Although the Pope is supposed to be supreme Pontiff and final authority on matters concerning religion, his writ does not seem to run. Dubiyas are raising questions about his pronouncements and he is publicly being accused of being a heretic. His repeated exhortations for leading a simple life style backed by his personal example are being blatantly ignored by his bishops, especially the SMC variety who continue to cling to their palaces, insist on the imperial address system and indulge in lavish parties, parading in public processions wearing garlands of currency notes; leaving their cattle class flock to fend for themselves.
Various groups of vested interests claim to be successful at swaying Pope Francis to promote their interests, for example, a group of gay German bishops claim to have Pope Francis appoint several known homosexuals to positions of power in the Vatican.Everybody is acting and speaking any which way they like in utter disregard to what Pope wants them to act and speak. It looks like Pope Francis has lost his grip over his bishops and theologians. Under such circumstances he has to take reocurse to one or all four of the strategies suggested by ancient Indian wisdom, i.e. Sam, Dam, bhed, dand. Especially Dand – dealing with a heavy hand. There is a saying in Hindi, that says “Latokebhootbaatosenahimaante”; meaning those who are used to getting kicked around, do not heed verbal orders.
The Pope can well issue a MotuProprio forbidding bishops to wear red skul caps and birettas and donning pink rimmed shining robes, and abolishing hierarchical/imperial address systems and let them be called by their given names. Let him hand over the administration of dioceses to competent committees of professional laypersons elected by the parishioners without any interference from the clergy, and deliver the women religious from the bondage slavery of the bishops.
If in this process, he stamps on the toes of his promoters from St. Gallen mafia, we can expect God to strenghhen his hands, if there is a God. By the way, the correct and complete saying is God bless you if there is a God; save my soul if there is a soul.
In another letter to Editor below he deals with Sin & Guilt complex
Is the Catholic church obsessed with sin and guilt?
If God worked 6 days and found every one of his creation GOOS, nay, EXCELLENT, how could he fail in his crowning work of creating man? Crash landed before the victory line? Says again a Malayalam proverb: “Kadampackal Kalam Odachu!,” Carried the clay water pot from far to break it on the door step?
I visited Hidepark Corner, famous for verbal debates, while assisting as Assistant PP in London for a month, 50 years ago and walking distance to the Park and the exhibited topic of one Soap-box orator was: “Who created SIN? And the answer given: “The Canon Law!”
According to some wise guys the greatest contribution made by the Catholic Church to humanity is the “Sense of Gilt of Sin” and the readiness of the unthinking credulous believers to spend a whole fortune to atone for their sins and go to heaven. More comments may be superfluous. Please think those thoughts over to get enlightened. james kottoor, editor CCV.
Please read below our friend Macwan on Sin and guilt
Since last many years I have been hearing that the greatest gift from the Catholic church to mankind has been the guilty complex, through the conveyance of the so called ‘original sin’ of Adam , the original father of mankind to the past, present and future generations; keeping the church busy baptising innocent infants to save them from eternal damnation.
This has come about through a misunderstanding and misinterpreting of certain ideas and presumptions made by early church theologians, the chief culprit among them being St. Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo who had sex on his mind most of his youthful life. Due to this erroneous concept of Original sin, the most intimate communion between a man and his wife, the sexual union has become a dirty word for Catholics and it was shorn of the beauty and joy it deserved being the natural way of obeying God’s command to mankind to be fruitful and to multiply and to fill the earth. (Gen 1.28 ).
Not stopping at derogation of legitimate sexual union by imputing guilt into it, the church keeps on continually hammering on the minds of its faithful of their sinfulness and hence unworthiness for God’s love and forgiveness, negating the basic principles of Christ’s teaching – in the process turning many a simple folks into victims of scrupulosity often leading to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ( OCD ) a serious mental disorder.
The reason for this sad result is explained beautifully by Mr. Michael Warren Davis, a former Anglican convert to Catholicism in his article ‘Catholic Guilt’( Catholic Herald,8.9.2017 ) thus: “The church teaches that there are two reasons to avoid sin. One is fear of hell, which is sufficient; the other is love of God, which is perfect. The former is what everyone means by ‘Catholic Guilt’ and should be called ‘Catholic Fear’ instead (and what influences everyone). The latter, the love of God, is ‘Catholic Guilt’ – and it’s a wonderful thing. Fear is borne of selfishness, guilt of love.” ( the four words in the bracket in the previous sentence added by me).
The church starts the day with the Holy Mass – recommended for daily attendance by pious Catholics – with the Penitential Rite right after the opening prayers, when the celebrant priest leads the congregation to recite the ‘I Confess’ with much thumping of the chest over the chanting of ‘Mea culpa, Mea culpa, Mea Maxima culpa’ (through my fault, my fault, my most grieveous fault).
Finally, after consecrating the bread and wine, and while distributing the Holy Communion presumably the bodyand blood of Christ transsubstanciated from bread and wine to the congregation, insisting (as per the liturgy) to meekly declare “I am not worthy to receive you but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” Contrast this with what St. Paul says in(2 Cor 5; 17b-21,NAB): “So whoever is in Christ is a new creation. The old things have passed away; behold, new things have come. And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.”
Also Eph 2; 19-22: “So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone.Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the spirit.”
Noel D’Silva in his article ‘We are co-heirs with Christ ( The Examiner, April 19-25, 2014 ) says: “The resurrection of Jesus has put a stamp on our redemption from the slavery of sin. We are now forgiven, holy, justified,free, adopted and reconciled. We are through the death and resurrection of Jesus daughters and sons of God, in the likeness of the beloved son and co-heirs to all that is his.” Is it then not a gross insult to the great loving sacrifice of Jesus our Lord to still aver that we are unworthy?
Eucharistic celebration is the memorial of the Last Supper, and on that occasion Jesus offered the bread and wine to his 12 apostles asking them to eat the bread as his body and drink the wine as his blood unconditionally, knowing fully well that Judas was bent on betraying him, Peter was going to deny him thrice, Thomas was going to doubt his word, and the two brothers James and John were greedy to occupy the pride of place on the right and left of his throne in the kingdom of heaven; but he let them partake the meal with him. And the church wants us to keep harping on our unworthiness, even after Christ has reinstated us in God’s favour by taking all the shame and guilt on him although he was totally sinless and guiltless. Through his crucifixion, death and resurrection, Christ freed his followers from the slavery of sin; but the Catholic church remains obsessed with sin and guilt, and wants its faithful to carry the millstone of guilt tied around their necks! It is time the progressive and pro-reform Pope Francis takes steps to reform the liturgy of the Eucharistic celebration to remove the anomaly.
