From: "Albert Desouza" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
For so many days I have been reading "what cardinal said ---- what Fr.Ivo
said --- and what the readers said.--- Why do you wash the linen on this
goanet?
***I do admire the postings of Albert, whom I know personally. It is a good
job to write and express one's faith and convictions.
But at the same time we have to know that there is a duty to deepen our
faith. Discussions can help us. By trying to see what the Cardinal has said
is also a useful exercise. When there are misunderstandings, discussion on
the text and context will not be an exercise in futility...
Cardinals are there to give speeches which people like me have to read
smile and go to sleep because it contains bombastic words and phrases
which poor people like me cannot understand.
***Any speech will have difficult words to understand unless we are tuned to
that language. When one reads about science, we put up all efforts to learn
the scientific language. Our daily papers bring so many words which we may
have to look for in the dictionary. A speech on Christian faith will have
its peculiar vocabulary. We have to do some homework to understand it.
Catechism classes will teach some language. Theology will teach more. No
wonder that not everyone can understand every word from the Cardinal's
speech, as not everyone can understand all the English words or Konkani
words from a speech on science, politics, sociology, psychology, or biblical
exegesis.
If they live in a manger among the poor by removing the purple there is
christ and if they talk big things they belong to the elite.
***There is a status in the society. All of us have to live according to our
vocation. The Cardinal does not have to live "in a manger" by "removing the
purple", but he has to work for the human dignity by bringing the poor to
the table and alleviating their misery. In history I remember Cardinal
Paul-Emile Leger (1904-1991), who served as Archbishop of Montreal from 1950
till 1968, and was elevated to Cardinal in 1953, at age 48, by Pius XII. He
gave up the privileges of a Cardinal to work among lepers and handicapped
children in Africa. He spent 12 years in the Cameroon. He said: "It will be
the great scandal of the history of our century that 500 million people are
eating well and living luxuriously and every year millions of children are
dying of hunger." When the Cardinal Leger toured African leper colonies and
saw misery, he started raising money for the lepers. Five years later, with
those sights still seared in his memory, he stunned Canadians by resigning
as Archbishop of Montreal to return to Africa and work among the lepers and
impoverished children as a missionary. He would say: "In a country like ours
where so much money circulates, there are always a few crumbs worth picking
up." There is a vocation, and 'a vocation within vocation'. Not every
Cardinal will do the same work as Card.Leger or Mother Teresa. You can work
in different ways, among the elite and among the poor. 'Why do you wash the
linen on Goanet'?
I would request you all to forget about the speech for if we are called
atheist or communist it does not change our skin for I feel communism is
the best and Jesus was a communist as many great people like me feel for
he believed in equality.
***Why should we forget "about the speech"? Is language not important? Is
instruction not needed? Why should we be called 'atheists' or 'communists'?
Why is 'communism' the 'best'? Does Communism believe in equality? What do
you mean by "communism", when you say that "communism is the best"? Do you
speak about 'communism' in the early Church? What do you mean when you say
that "Jesus was a communist"? Do you speak of the 'communist' ideology? Or
that Jesus spoke of God as Father and humanity as 'children of God'? You
see, again, the question of understanding is coming up. We are human beings
and need language for our communication and human growth. We can deepen this
topic privately without a new controversy in the Goanet...
Regards.
Fr.Ivo
