Recently,
one person brought to my attention the ongoing fight between the two catholic neighbours because
of some property matter, this fight is now going on since last 11 years. During this long period of court battle, both
the parties have undergone lot of expenses totaling to lakhs of rupees, major
portion of the money gone into the pockets of the advocates who being
non-Christians are enjoying the fun between the two Catholics. Both the
advocates of both the warring parties are not prepared to bring the case to the
final conclusion because the first aim of these advocates is to see both the fighting
parties disgrace the name of their religion thereby indicating to everyone that
Catholics are the destructive people where they are ready to do any nonsense to
satisfy their personal ego to gain materially even by destroying their own
co-religionists and secondly to make their clients exhaust their financial
resources and finally fall on the road.
My
immediate response to this topic was this: “Go and tell the village Pe. Vigar
who is doing nothing good for the Catholic community”. These Pe. Viiagrs are fit to serve God only but
not their fellow human beings. This is
not correct. The purpose of the priest is to stop the souls from going to the
Hell by preventing the Catholics from committing the sins. The fight between the two neighbours
indicated above is surely leading them to Hell and hence Pe. Vigar will surely
help them in this matter.
Further
I said Pe. Vigar is duty bound as the fatherly figure by virtue of being Pe.
Vigar not only pleading with them in the name of Christ as a spokesman for the
Christ but also speak to them sternly to settle their property dispute amicably
because Christian doctrine does not permit them to be belligerent. The priests got lot of ideas to settle such
disputes but many of them are not taking any pain to solve such problems.
I
remember having read about 30 years back in Kuwait Times the living story in
Brazil where in one particular area with the dynamic leadership of the local Pe.
Vigar, all the locals joined together and agreed to withdraw all the court
cases filed against one another and never in future to go to the court to
settle their disputes, their disputes must be solved by their Pe. Vigar who
enjoyed the allegiance of the locals being all Catholics. They openly said it
is not right for one Catholic to fight against another catholic, it is even
against their own religion.
I
think we catholics are so shameless that we take pleasure in fighting amongst
us only thru the Court. And many of our local Pe.Vigars and Pe. Curs are more
shameless for being silent spectators to see these fights between Catholics and
Catholics instead of directly stopping the warring parties, the priests are in
place of Christ and as such they wield lot of spiritual power to educate the
warring persons. It is time now for us to involve our local Pe. Vigars in our
disputes and thru his goodwill we solve our problems. No doubt many of our Pe. Vigars will be
reluctant to involve themselves in such matters not because they are incapable
to solve such problems but they want to lead a cozy life and doing things which
are better suited to others.
For
example, is it the job of the Pe. Vigar to devote his time in the school as Principal
of the local Church School of Diocesan Society?
If he spends his major part of the day in the School then when he will
do the work of the Pe. Vigar?
The
problem with our Pe. Vigars and Pe. Curs is that many of them are become
worldly leading them to be money
conscious. I know one Pe. Vigar was
involved in buying and selling property and ready made Flats. Is this the job of the priests? When one’s mind goes on money and sex then
one act selfish. Priestly robes are not meant for selfish people.
Secondly,
I don’t know what our Samudai members are doing, They are dubbed as gossipers
and useless people. They should have found out where are erring Catholics,
where are the suffering catholics and who are the catholics who deserve top
attention. And accordingly they should do something to eradicate the problems
and disputes existing among the Catholics.
In
my village only one Pe. Vigar, Pe. Nicholau Noronha in llate fifties and early
sixties used to directly go to those Catholics fighting fighting court cases
against eeach other and get their problems sorted out amicably in the name of
Jesus Christ.
A.Veronica
Fernandes.
