Further to my article in this forum in the first week of May
this year on members of clergy climbing on top to collect money for their
personal benefit by making use of the position in the Church, immediately then
after our Pope at Vatican also issued a statement condemning the Clergy who
follow Jesus for money. I don’t know whether He read the said article or not
even though I regularly send one copy to
Vatican yet in his statement the Pope echoed my thoughts as indicated below.
In the month of May this year, our Pope Francis from Vatican
commented against those clergy members who by using the Church platform,
collect money for them. Here it is what
the Pope has said of the corrupt clergy by condemning them as profiteers and
climbers who use the Catholic Church to
make money for them. Said the Pope, “There are climbers in the Church. There
are a lot of them. People who follow Jesus for money, try to profit from the
parish, the diocese, the Christian community, the hospital, the college. We have
known a lot of good Catholics, good Christians.
And then we discover that they have been carrying out somewhat shady
dealings. They were real profiteers and they made a lot of money. They
presented themselves as benefactors but they took a lot of money and not always
clean money”. Further adding, Pope Francis demanded total transparency in all
the financial dealings of the Church and of clergy.
As far as I know not a single Pe. Vigar disclosed this comment
from the Altar while preaching his homily, however, if Pope Francis had to
request the clergy to ask money and other material benefits from the faithful,
our Pe. Vigars and other priests would immediately disclose this loudly with
top priority. According to one source from Vatican, Pope Francis is very much
disappointed with the indiscipline of the Bishops and Priests who are on loot
spree by sucking the blood of the faithful. It looks Pope Francis is aware of
the loot systematically conducted in our Churches also and this loot will never
end unless there is complete transparency of all the financial dealings and
financial matters of our Church.
Is our Goa Church maintaining total transparency in its
financial dealings? Does it show transparency in the money it spends,
especially the money it collects from the faithful? Is there any discipline for
the Church authorities and clergy to collect money from the faithful? Our
Church leaders and clergy go about ruthlessly like wild animals in collecting
money from the faithful. Last year in
the month of August I was on a short vacation in Goa. This incident happened in
one Parish below my nose and similar incidents happened elsewhere too. To
collect money for that particular Parish, the local Pe. Vigar printed Lottery
Tickets, each ticket Rs. 10/- and each book consisting of 20 tickets. These tickets the Pe. Vigar who is also the
principal of the Parish School marketed thru all the students studying in his
school by distributing one book to each student. If there are 3 students from each family then
three books to each family. It was a big burden for the children and even for their parents.
Most of the students found it very difficult to sell these
tickets however, to please their Pe. Vigar/Principal of the school they even
started begging with the people to purchase these lottery tickets. When one
young girl student approached one young boy with a request to purchase some
tickets from her, the cunning boy said “Not only some but I will buy the whole
book provided you come to have sex with me”.
And very deplorably and pitiably the girl having no other choice to
dispose of the tickets book, surrendered her body to that stupid boy. This is only one
incident which I know but in this way there are innumerable such incidents
which gone unnoticed. And who is
responsible for such incidents? Definitely our Pe. Vigars and principals who
are acting more like Pimps than Pe. Vigars.
Thru these incidents our Pe. Vigars are creating avenues for
our young boys and young girls to commit sins resulting in collecting money, for
whom? Where this money finally goes and
into whose pockets? Surely a portion of
this money goes for the maintenance of the Concubines of Pe. Vigars/Principals.
In view of this, we have no right to ask God in our daily prayer for “THY
KINGDOM COME” because HIS Kingdom will never come to a place where there is Sin
promoted thru illicit money making methods of our sinful and corrupt Pe.
Vigars and other priests.
Education department of Goa under the ministry of Parricar
should investigate into this matter because Pe. Vigar Principals cannot tax the
students by unnecessarily burdening them on such money collection business. It
is not the job of school students to collect money for the unknown ventures of
the Pe. Vigar Principals. At an appropriate time, Education minister of Goa
will be notified to take corrective action and to reprimand the guilty.
A.
Veronica
Fernandes,
Candolim,
Goa.
Tel:7507394349.
