What Fines for Rev. Mgr. to Your
Holiness?
Spare rod & spoil the child is true not only for
kids but also for childish adult leaders who stay kids until rapped. Didn’t
even Jesus prescribe rod for errants: for those who call fool, renegade (Mt.5, 22)? Where compelling example
fails to cause change, corrective punishment becomes indispensible.
dr. james kottoor
“There was a report that Pope
Francis told a Bishop: “The next time anyone addresses you as ‘Your
Excellency’, fine him 20 Euros!” I am waiting for the time when he will fine
100 Euros to the one who addresses him as, “Your Holiness”, for we know that
God alone is Holy.” Who said it?
No, some one wrote it, none other than Bishop
Alex Dias, of Port Blair in his article: Pope Francis, I love you, (in
Indian Current, Delhi (IC) 1/9/14, www.indiancurrents.org). Here is a bishop who loves to be called simply
“Alex” without the affixes of ‘Dias’, ‘Bishop’ and least of all by honorific
phrases like “Your Excellency, “Your Lordship”, or anything in that litany,
because he firmly believes in being one with his people as did Mahabali of old
to create equality and prosperity in Kerala’s lost paradise. So he writes: “Gone
are the days, when people would, perhaps, appreciate the outward, worldly
grandeur of the Church prompting youngsters laugh in derision saying: ‘Abhi Joker Log aa
rahehaim!’ Pope Francis, addressing the
Diplomatic Corps of the Church, pointed to the statue of Jesus Crucified, as he
told them that their only promotion must be to the Cross.”
Is there any one among
Indian bishops who is totally against this outdated, Constantenian, Imperial
practice? To my knowledge: None. Some could be convinced of the need to burry
this clownish practice of honorific appellations for good, but I have come
across none bold enough to come out in
public to advocate it’s burial, lock stock and barrel. There is a long story
behind it, factual, which happened in 2012. In brief: Even long before that I
used to be a crusader, in my writings of course, against this unholy,
scandalous practice by the so called followers of the Carpenter of Nazareth who
railed relentlessly against the priestly class and Pharisees of his time for allowing themselves to be called “Rabai” etc. Many a time I wrote:
To call the Pope: “Your Holiness” is blasphemy pure and simple, because God
alone is Holy.” A creature playing God is to be stopped forthwith
Your
Holiness or Servant of Servants?
Sometimes I even
trembled that some one would pounce on me to expel me out of the Church for my
audacity and temerity, for being disrespectful to a “Holy Pope”. But no one
did. Of course honestly I was not being disrespectful to Papacy. I was simply
expressing my staunch opposition to a monstrous, self-evident sinful practice. Haven’t
we to hate sin and love the sinner? In doing so I had no love lost for the Pope.
Never! In fact I argued that the correct title for the Pope could be: “Servant
of Servants” (Servus Servorum) but it can’t go pari-passu
with “Your Holiness”, being diametrically the opposite and in mortal conflict
“You may be right, but
you should not blurt out every unpleasant truth publically and court
controversy and disturb public peace (of
cemetery?)” my questioning mind used to rebuke me. To that the other half of my
reason used to retort: “If only Jesus had kept His blessed mouth shut and did
not say all those nasty things (Woes in Mat.23) against the high priests of his
time, he would perhaps have lived a thousand years.” So now I feel much
relieved when my friend Alex also says, calling Pope “Your Holiness” is wrong
because “we know God alone is Holy.” When you are in honourable company you feel
comfortable even to go to hell. Funny
Dear Alex, “but were there no
Solomon among bishops, with or without Arch, during the last 2000 years to shout it out
from the house tops and wake up the Hierarchy?”. Half in joke, half in earnest,
some wise crack had said: “We all know, the mundane nations of the world are
governed by fools while the Catholic
Church is governed by Arch fools.”
Don’t be upset for referring to
a Bishop as “Dear Alex”. It was in 2012 that Bishop Alex wrote an article:
“Needed: Church Shorn of
Grandeur,”(IC 18/3/12) for the Lenten season. It shook me out of my wits
because an Indian Bishop, expected to be very subservient, was shouting out a
home truth. So I wanted to congratulate him immediately. Being in Chicago with
my daughter at that time, I wrote to the Editor of IC more than once to get the
e-mail of Alex with no avail. That didn’t deter me. I searched the Port Blair
website and finally reached him after trying several wrong ids I got. After
thanking and congratulating him, the next thing I did was to write an article
in IC: Only Remedy: Damascus treat, For Hierarchical High Horse Disease!
Call me
by name Alex
Simultaneously
I got Alex’s article and mine published in several website magazines in US and
India for the edification of ever so many readers. Why? Because in his article Bishop Alex had written
referring to Episcopal titles: “I find these titles come in the way of a warm
and friendly conversation. I would just like to call a person by name, and be
called by name, dropping all formalities and titles. Jesus tells us: “You
are not to be called rabbi...teachers, father...(Mt. 23: 8-10).” So in my
article I just rose up to his expectations and addressed him: Dear Alex all through.
To read these two articles please visit: http://sites.google.com/site/jameskottoorspeaking/ and click the two titles in the Alphabetical
Index on the left. I believe both the articles are mines of gold deposits of
spiritual thought of contemporary relevance. If you don’t find them, please
tear me to pieces. What I mean is: “Do me the service of a Devil’s advocate”.
What I wish to high light is
there are exemplary Indian Bishops like Alex Dias. He goes about the Island of
Andaman and Nicobar with the missionary zeal matched only by Apostle Paul. How
do you knew, you may ask. True, to this day I have never met him or he me but
he has written such long letters to me as no other bishop on earth has and I still wonder why. From those letters (I
have them still as my precious keep) I knew that he knew me from New Leader
times, though I didn’t, and he even invited me to visit him in Port Blair,
which I could not oblige. You can verify it with Alex. Indeed unforgettable are
lessons taught by example. Aren’t they? That is where Pope Francis shines best,
as “Teacher Par Excellence,” and we celebrated Teachers’ day recently.
To come back to the title of this essay:
How serious and important is the role of appellations in witnessing to Jesus
who never pretended to be anything greater than an ordinary carpenter? Didn’t
his cotemporaries contemptuously say: “Is he not the Son of a Carpenter…What
good can come out of Nazareth etc?” Recall Jesus’ own warning: No disciple can
be greater than the master. Yet our ecclesiastical hierarchical class revels in
being addressed with otherworldly or heavenly titles even when the crowd below
their thrones shout: “The King is naked,” (Abhi Joker Log aa
rahehaim) Nay, most of them think, these perks and
privileges, as their
legitimate right .as do many of our corrupt politicians and take offense when
the protocol is not followed. Isn’t it therefore necessary that the Indian
bishops convene an emergency telephone conference to discuss the urgency of
doing away with this practice of preaching Christ and counter witnessing him in
practice?
But how to do away with this centuries old
practice? Habits die hard and good examples even from the very top fail to have
any commanding power on subordinates. For example I do not know how Pope
Francis is being addressed now? But I cited two instances in my earlier
articles when, Francis called up two youngsters in North Italy in response to
letters they wrote. In both the instances Francis insisted: “Call me just “you”,
(in country style “Tu” in Italian, not the honorific “Lai”) adding, didn’t the
apostles call Jesus just that and not “Your Excellency?” Did any such outstanding examples have any impact,
I mean commanding effect, on our Episcopal class? Any unbecoming and
unacceptable behaviour or code of conduct, even if they are deep rooted and
sanctified by centuries of malpractice, must be corrected, if not by counsel,
by command, by enacting laws to reward and punish the guilty.
Fines
for Law breakers?
Levying
fines on law breakers at the lowest level with 25 Euros (in India how much:
Rs.25/- and Rs.100/- at top level?) could be the beginning to enforce a
cleansing drive. I won’t be surprised if PM Modiji were to impose some small
penalty for those who defecate in public, not in the beginning of his cleansing
drive, but after he has provided enough toilets for the poor? Defecating in the
open fills the atmosphere with poisonous, fowl smell. Regular use of unholy,
unbecoming and unchristian appellations similarly sullies the moral atmosphere
in the Church. It becomes counter witnessing, loud and deafening. Yes it has
deafened all of us to what is right parlance and right vocabulary. We got so
used to what is wrong that we have come to love and accept it as right. Repeat
a bad word as nausea and it comes to be accepted as acceptable, then
respectable and then indispensable.
Yet is it fine to penalize some one and make a
spectacle out of him/her? To educate the vast variety of offenders in this
field it is important, or at least helpful, to make at least a list of
offending words and titles that sully the moral atmosphere among followers of
Jesus to begin with. For example what fines are to be imposed on those who use
graded appellations like: Chevalier, Rev., Very Rev., Very, Very Rev., Rt.Rev.,
Msgr., Your Excellency, Your Grace, Your Highly placed, Mar, Your Beatitude, Your Holiness? According
to the simple prescription given by Jesus we are all equals like brothers and
Sisters, friends and well wishers and anything other than these which puts one
above or below you – forget about creating hierarchical pedestals of careerism
– is totally unacceptable among the followers of Jesus. If all the readers of
this piece were to share their lights on more concrete offending appellations
other than those cited above and the possible penalties to be attached to them
– like Jesus saying “if you call your brother a fool you are answerable before
the Sanhedrin, if you call him “Renegade” you will answer for it in hell fire…”
(Mt.5, 22) we can make fast progress in cleaning up the foul smelling moral
atmosphere in church and society. If Jesus thought of and taught grades of
punishments for various kinds and grades of verbal offenses, we also should
think and act likewise as he is to be our role model in everything.
Will Bishops Respond?
Just one more
point. When Bishop Alex wrote in IC in 2012 not a single Indian Bishop came
forward either to support or oppose him, although many Church Citizens (laity)
expressed whole hearted support. If this piece were to be sent to all Indian
bishops will any one come up either to support or oppose? I usually send all
relevant writings to bishops, just to imitate the transparency of Jesus and to avoid
speaking behind the back of any one. In an article: Shake off Dust of
Empire,(Read it also in the website mentioned above), Joseph Mattam sj,
long time Dean of Jesuit Theologate in Gujarat, writer and international
speaker, recounts his experience of speaking to all Indian Bishops with
representatives from Rome on the hazards of clinging to pagan titles,
privileges and perks. He says the
response was a dreadfully disturbing and alarming eloquent silence. .
Recounting another example of talking to bishops about giving up titles he
records what one bishop stood up to say: “Your
Grace, My Lords and Rev. Fathers, you do not know what you are talking about;
it is not that we want to be called Lords, etc., but it is what the Lord Jesus
wanted” - we all looked at each other and smiled; we did not think we could
carry on with men like him, so all kept quiet about the matter.”
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