-------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Read V.M. de Malar's latest Column: | | | | Politics of Destruction | | | | http://www.goanet.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=416 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Basilio,
Your post was one of the most balanced I have read. Yes, Goa has changed a lot, particularly the villages, they are no longer the dormant, sleepy places only good as holiday Resorts. There is such vibrancy in my own Village Verna. As a child, the church was swept and cleaned maybe once a month by the much overworked'peddo" but now we see the church spruced up, regularly cleaned by people from different wards, there are parish councils, youth groups, and various activities and these are attended by everyone, Catholics, Hindus and Muslims and nobody is bothered by this fact. Priests have played and continue to play a large role in our Villages, there are factions who love them and those that dislike them, depending on various circumstances, for Villages as everyone knows have their own politics, which again differ from village to village, the Verna politics may be different from those of Cansaulim ! But at the end of it, we are all people with dreams, aspirations, needs and weaknesses, loves and hates. Priests are no different, they too are human, and they too need human company as much as any other person, imagine their dilema, and most of all imagine their loneliness, at the end of the day, when we are at the dinner table surrounded by our families, watching TV, eating, squabbling and all those simple, tiny things that make living in a family worthwhile, what does a priest have, a solitary dinner with a little conversation thrown in by the "cook" and nothing more. Maybe we expect too much from our priests, we expect them to do good, we expect them to finish the Mass as soon as possible !! To preach well, and not to have any wants but most of all we never ever think of how lonely thay are, it must be terrible, so if they stray and do something that we do not think is appropriate,let us forgive them, let us think that they give us much more than we can ever repay and most of all let God be their judge. Warm wishes Sonia do Rosario Gomes
