Voice of People: Voice of God? – Chewing the cud for 2 weeks
James kottoor
That happened when I first stepped into the great Poonamallee Seminary when its kind and saintly looking Rector Fr.Vallogia put that question to me in the midst of a crowd of 100 seminarians of all ages waiting to welcome our batch from Kerala.
The saintly Rector bend down thrice, as I was young and short, but holding an SSLC certificate, so thinking I was learned enough. Only at the 3rd time I could grasp the meaning of Did you eat? And I blurted out YES, the first spoken English, which reduced my self-assumption of KNOWING literary to ZERO!
Useless self-study?
Ever since I started concentrating on self-study reading and taking notes which I do even today running 86, since wasting time or sitting idle is the real Hell for me! Have I learned much? I still complain daily to Jesus, I am still a more blind “know-nothing than Bar-Thimeus to whom he supposed to have given sight. You judge and decide after reading what is below!
Thought-bits from various Sources!
“Fault finding was started by god to those who believe in the bible: Yes God started it first accusing Adam, his own creation; Adam pointed his finger at Eve, She at the serpent. There it stopped because if you continue, you the accuser may become the accused and get thrashed.”
“There is one that does not change, church leadersip, Semper idem(always same). As long as we follow these leaders incapable of thinking, no change is possible. There are 13 criminal cases against Alancherry, how many crores have been spent to destabilize them. In Abhya case church spent more than 500 crores reportedly to save culprits, Sr. Stephi and other priests will be declared saints like the Bishop of Hyppo, the womeniser. Priests consider sisters as their Devadasies. Why? “Christianity is about service but not about servitude.” Especially in the case of millions of Sisters, whose selfless service is turned into “Servitude!”
“Iceberg called clergy sex abuse has hit the Titanic called Catholic Church and it is sinking, SOS CALLS ARE flying thick and fast. Last resort is to wake up the “Me too” sections of the Sisters to come out in the open to fight also sexy priests, in every step of the hierarchical ladder up to RED HATS OR CARDINALS.”
For Pope Francis the hierarchical structure is a cancer, the Church must be turned upside down. So he put himself one step below the laity, calling himself a “sinner” to serve all sinners on the periphery with the motto “a poor Church for the poor!” Pointing to some clerics (Clricalism) who make enormous effort to become a bishop he said: “Once they become one, they spread their wings like a Peacock in gorgeous colours, expecting adulation and hosanna in the market place!”
Religion is Opium – Marx
“Religion is opium of the masses” said Karl Marx the eternal atheist. He explains: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions.” Interestingly, Marx had prophesised the withering away of the state, but never religion!”
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” – MahatmaGandhi(Being old & unsure of tomorrow I live only for dawn to dusk!)
The 17th-century French writer, La Rochefoucauld, famously defined hypocrisy as “the tribute that vice pays to virtue”.
“Congress the 134-year-old party is in a fine mess today. It is on the brink of collapse, the party organization is in tatters, there have been a series of desertions while its credibility has touched a new low. ideologically hollow.”
“Rs 15 lakh — Narendra Modi had, in a 2014 pre-election speech, promised that each Indian would receive that sum if black money stashed abroad were brought back to India.”
“The American dream is rapidly becoming the American illusion,” Property, profit, production, prosperity and progress!”
“When democracy becomes corrupt the best gravitates to the bottom and the worst floats to the top and vile is replaced by more vile.” Is there any difference between the oldest democracy US and the largest democracy India?
Vattoly Augustine: “Christ questioned the Jewish priests and taught us to question our priests, to cleanse and purify them, we should use our time, our talent like time and talents, speech and writing for that. Acts and first Christian community was a participatory community, Collegiality was in ACTS.”
“Come and see said Jesus, replaced the cruel Yahweh with loving Father God, Jesus never handled money, Entrusted to Judas. Whose money is Church money… of the poor who come to pray and give little offerings from daily wages. That money is not for building concrete wonders in Edappally.”
“When Portughese Wascodigama landed in 1498 in Kerala there was a flourishing Christian community. In AD 52 Thomas came to Malabar. They had both bible and bullet in their hands. Business, bullet and Bible were the triple tactics used to conquer Bharat for Christ. Think of it, there are more than 5% Christians in China, 8% in Sri Lanka, 9 in Indonesia, 27 in S.Korea, Christianity is dwindling in Europe, Ireland, and USA, believing without belonging but flourishing in Latin America and Africa.”
KCRMA & Church Reform
“We in the KCRMA are all, as president Chackochan Kalrickal would say links of the steel chain called CHURCH REFORM tying the floundering and drowning Bark of Peter, closer and closer to its CAPTAIN, JESUS, to Him alone and none other. We are not Satan’s battalion or an army of empire builders. We are prophetic followers of Naman who says “That man is You”, of Jesus himself speaking from house tops pointing an accusing finger at thieves, robbers, exploiters of women and making holy sisters prostitutes.
“We don’t go round stealing petty cash that fall in the begging bawls of squatting cripples to build Edappally like imposing churches. We are fearless proclaimers of TRUTH alone at any cost. We are not preachers of Prosperity Gospel to empty the pockets of the beggars left with only the widow’s penny in their pockets.”
Rape accused Franko got royal reception when released. Rape inflicted sister got just the opposite. Priests and bishops can buy luxury cars, not sisters. Robbing Sr. of her entire salary is not sin! Lucy finished 34 years in convent serving but spoke against Franco supporting raped sister.
“Latest Vatican women’s magazine is blaming the drastic drop in the number of nuns worldwide in part on their wretched working conditions and the sexual abuse and abuses of power they suffer at the hands of priests and their own superiors. In a two-page letter dated March 16, Brazilian Cardinal João Braz Cardinal de Aviz, prefect for the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, to women and men religious around the world urges to take all measures to rescue sisters thrown out and are forced to becomes prostitutes to survive! Pope Francis is doing just that in Rome.
“With everyone, for everyone’s development and worthy of everyone’s trust”. (Sab ka saath, sab ka vikas, sab ka vishwas). The significant feature about the Unnao tragedy is that it exposes the weakness of the major pillars of our democracy.”
“Muslims are right since they are reacting also to Modi’s comment, ‘they can be spotted by their clothes’ and the Modi parivar parading their identity with lotus and saffron color all the time. But they are wrong since all the rest of the protesting crowd are highlighting “I am one Human” the common cause of brotherhood of all Indians irrespective of their religious differences!
“So what is essential to achieve unity, common cause and PEACE on earth to all men of good will? Jesus paraded the banner SON OF MAN to bind together all human race, not any divisive religion or his being a Jew! What then do you think is compelling to demonstrate now, at all our protest meets?”
“Perfect people don’t drink, don’t fight, don’t lie, don’t make mistakes…and don’t exist.” Paulo Cohelo.
Evolution of Catholic Church
Over centuries the Catholic Church evolved with a mix of Man, Movement and Machine. Power makes us proud and blind. So the Church did not know how to tackle the Great Schism of the East in the eleventh century, the Reformation in the sixteenth century, the French Revolution in the eighteenth century; followed by the Marxist, industrial, information, gender and sexual revolutions. The last straw on the camel’s back was the two World Wars that shattered people’s trust, especially in organized religion. Churches were empty. They had become magnificent Monuments for camera toting tourists, rather than being “My father’s house shall be called a house of prayer” (cf Mat 21:13). It was then that Time magazine in 1960 published its cover page ‘GOD IS DEAD”.
“Good Friday 54 years ago. It was on 8th April 1966. On that day Time magazine carried the shocking cover page “Is God Dead?” in bold red letters against a black background. It was the first time that the magazine had a cover without a picture. How would anyone truly depict God anyway? This cover page was described as one of the 12 magazine covers that shook the world. It elicited 3500 letters to the editor.”
“But what about JESUS, son of Man, for Christians and innumerable churches: Son of God and Perfect human being? Was he a fact of history or a product of human day-dreaming, to overcome day-to-day human experience: “Live in hope and die in despair?” On that in our next post!
Nostradamus’ predition!
“French apothecary, astrologer and seer Michel de Nostradamus wrote in the year 1551: “There will be a twin year (2020) from which will arise a queen (Corona) who will come from the east (China) and who will spread a plague (virus) in the darkness of night on a country with seven hills (Italy) and will transform the Twilight of men into dust (death), to destroy and ruin the world. It will be the end of the world economy as you know it.” Is the present Corona Virus, what he predicted?
May our leaders and our readers have the insight and the courage to move from a culture of death(Covid 19) to a culture of life: “With everyone, for everyone’s development and worthy of everyone’s trust”. (Sab ka saath, sab ka vikas, sab ka vishwas).
james kottoor editor ccv
