GL responds
Was it not your post Fred stating that an inquiry about one's village (commonly done in Goa) and a look about at one's birth certificate tells one about their caste.
The first part of the statement is true. Cecil Pinto has still not forgiven me for saying this ;-) and says statements such as these cause a lot of embarassment over what can (sometimes) also be a rather innocent question. I can't exactly figure out where the "birth certificates" bit came in, though you might as well be true on that too.
As you know both statements were wrong
I'm not sure about this, as far as the first part of the statement goes. School certificates -- not birth certificates -- did included (in my time, which was aggges ago) columns for 'race' and 'religion'. Our school authorities simply filled in 'Indian Christian'. We didn't debate with anyone over that. One doesn't remember ever having to identify my caste in an official form -- there were simply two categories SC/ST and general. The SC/ST categorisation was more in the form of affirmative action, as some form of positive discrimination was offered to those in these long-neglected categories.
and they turned out to be a flame thrower, that we have yet to recover from - that of course is thanks to me.:=))
Yes. In Net jargon, you could call them flame-baits. These posts were provocative, intended to rake up discussion, and get in different perspectives on an issue. They were not intended to cause any personal insult, or prove that I'm necessarily right over everything, but rather to test a hypothesis which seems still pretty prevalent even today.
For instance, sometime people get rather jumpy when I insist that I "live in Saligao" (a geographically-attestable and undeniable fact) and refuse to get caught up in the more-loaded "where are you from" question.
Is the statement/ comment/ question below along similar lines?
Yes, it too is intended to provoke a wide range of debate.
Are you a member of COW? (committee for the ordination of women) =:))
Please could you send me the membership rules and contact details? Do they have a website? In turn, I could put you in touch with DOG (Don't Ordain Gender-handicapped species).
I have no strong feelings either way because women or no women would not come between me and my God and my church. If it affects someone, they need to re-evaluate their reasons for being Catholic and the follower of Christ
I have no strong feelings either. Just that discriminating on the basis of gender is about as sensible as discriminating on the basis of age, colour, race, caste, height, blood-group, nationality, and the like.
Would ordination of women help more men and Goan men to go to
church?:=))
Nice question! If we could have a few more such questions coming in, then we could postpone the issue of ordination of women for some time more. As of now, without women, I'm sure the Church would find it rather difficult to continue as an organisation. FN
PS: Have a good weekend. It's a hot and sunny Sunday morning in Goa, and I'm already late to meet up with Victor Rangel-Ribeiro at Fontainhas.
