Fr George Pattery SJ

“Lack of public reasoning, biased media and anger are of one piece. They are pieces of a new larger narrative of religious nationalism, that is being pushed up.”

There is a lot of anger expressed in our public media and very little of public reasoning, what happened to the social and communitarian levels of life? Why are we angry? Why do we turn to ourselves in narcissistic manner?
Lack of public reasoning, biased media and anger are of one piece. They are pieces of a new larger narrative of religious nationalism, that is being pushed up. Religious nationalism is NOT rationally justifiable; nor socially convincing nor historically arguable. The only way to enforce it is to appeal to primordial sense of religion, to make it emotive and galvanizing. Recall the frenzied ‘Rath yatra’ of Advani or the nationalistic rhetoric of Modi. Communalize and nationalize the majority community, and naturally the minority communities are distanced, made ‘the other’ as second-class citizens in their land. This is done by reinventing ‘the cultural identity’ rooted in the past, erasing the memory of independence era. Result is the loss of public reasoning; anger at the minorities, and the media buys them for survival.
There is in fact a ‘mimetic cycle’ involved: the so-called the Christian West and the Muslim Middle East have got majoritarian national glory attached to a religious culture. Why not then Hindu rashtra? Thus, goes the unfounded argument. The Christian-Muslim is ‘the other’ abroad, that is attractive to be imitated; near home, create ‘the other’ of the minorities of Muslims and the Christians as enemies to fight against. In short, the mimetic ‘other’ is both the object of attraction and repulsion. Mimesis ends up in violence. Anger is evident on both sides: to push down the nationalistic idea with anger, and to feel unwanted in their land and live with fear and anger.
We are failing to walk the talk, pretension is no more private but it has become an industry in all spheres of life ? Is it because we are living in a market culture of the desire to make profit in our relations? Many of the established systems thrive in pretensions of one sort or other?
Rajeev Bhargava argues (The Hindu, 26/8/20) that two ideas appear to dominate our public discourse today. One, somewhat implicitly, self-interest. The second, far more explicitly, national glory. We seem to be more aware and fight against the latter. But the former – the how of the pursuit of greed and narrow self-interest – effects inequalities, and unequal division of social benefits.
The market culture dictates and dominates. It caters to our desires; controls and manipulates our desires. We are made to desire what Áiswarya Rai or Bachan desire. Not for the quality of the object itself but because it is held by Aiswarya. What she desires becomes desirable for me; not necessarily for its quality. We are led by the illogic of ‘desire’ to be desired by the one whom we desire.’ We desire something because it is made desirable by the one who holds/advertise/etc. This is a culture of pretensions; of make-belief. ‘Rafael Jets’ are more desirable than ‘support’ for migrants; ’hate speech’ is permissible for Facebook, as long as there is market value; hate sells; ‘judgements are so framed that the judges get post-retirement perks. Ours is a system built on lies. Something is valuable if there is market/profit value. If 40% of the world economy is dependent on global armament industry, then wars are necessary for human economy! We build our economy on structural violence! The entire socio-political-economic system is a whitewashed and decorated sepulchre; in side it is all dead, dry bones of in-built violence. Can this system implode with a pandemic like situation? Or we continue as before, business as usual?
How do we perceive the change of Hagia Sophia into a mosque and the building of Ram Mandir in place of Babari Masjid. Minorities are harassed all over the world, why do you think minority rights are seen by the majority community as privileges than a rights? What should our attitude to Hagia Sophia, once a Cathedral? Are the Jews who after the destruction of the temple started synagogues of reading the Holy write a model for us?
Hagia Sophia becoming mosque or Babri Masjit becoming Temple do NOT matter much, as long as gods are only replaced, but GOD – the Ultimate – does not reside in a temple, mosque, or a church. What is at work is NOT assertions of gods, but assertions of ‘rights’ that are either just or contrived. It is truly religious to assert one’s genuine rights, having recourse to primordial religiosity. If one asserts ‘rights’ according to the really REAL, there could be no dispute; the really REAL asserts all. But the manipulation of the manufactured gods (not the really REAL) to assert one’s majoritarian might as right, using religious arguments sounds heretical. Apart from religious considerations, the larger issues relate to the failure of politics, the governments and the polity. There emerges acumulative argument for a new political theory that promotes and protects all citizens as members of the same Common Home.
Pope Francis now increasingly highlights the importance of Synodality in different fields of the Church, why do you think we should give priority to communicative language of relationship? You had been in exercise of authority in the Church for more than 20 years.
Synodality is certainly communicative language of relatedness; it looks as if, it is a matter of communication. Genuine communication leads to communion. The ultimate model of true communication that leads to perfect communion is divinity as trinity. It is a kind of letting be in and through relatedness, of total giving and receiving between the other and self. It is perichoresis, letting be that includes a sort of primordial circumincession, com-penetration. It is a communication that exchanges power, through surrendering and receiving. Its power is powerlessness of total giving; it is the Spirit. It is the divine politics of the cross; it is a power game of relatedness, of synodality. The deepest communication of power through powerlessness leading to perfect communion is the essence of trinitarian life.
In the Church context, synodality is the modus vivendi et operandi of the people of God as communion (ITC: Synodality in the life and mission of the Church, 2/08/2018. No.14). Synodality includes the consensus of the people (No.24) and builds up consensus among people. Consensus is built when all people are seeking the design of God, all surrender their power in actual communication with one another, moving towards communion. Hence the exercise of power has to be radically different in the Church from that of the world. It is the exercise of power in surrendering one’s power. Exchange of power in powerlessness. However, the human aspirations run deep, making the ecclesial space as that of the worldly powers. It seems to me that in the religious circles in the Church, there is space and time to exercise power differently. I felt this deeply in the last two General Congregations of the Jesuits (GC 35 & 36) when we elected new Generals. There is this deep desire to be internally free from biases/preferences, but to be open to the Spirit and to seek his/her finger at work among us. There was deep surrendering in view of finding the right man. Does religious life witness to a qualitatively different way of exercising power today? Certainly not. Yet one could say that religious life contains the seeds of synodality in its ways and is the best bet of synodality today. This should extend itself, with reforms, to the style of the entire body of the Church.
Scandals within the Church seem to stink to the extent it vitiates the whole atmosphere without a machinery or a system to take care of it and contain it. Scandals can occur in any community, how do we live with it?
Scandals do occur and we can not stop them once and for all. Church is always in the making. However, the recent scandals in the Church, especially those related to paedophilia has shaken the Church to its roots, as it happened in the most traditional locations of the Church and with the most unexpected people, its clergy – the custodians of the Church as an institution. I find three important lessons for us in these scandals: Most of these scandals relate to an abuse of power; secondly power is concentrated in the clergy; and thirdly clergy assumes its power primarily through its role in liturgy. This is where I feel that Pope Francis has his finger on the right spot. He aims at clergy reform as fight against clericalism as his priority. Recall the Christmas gift that Pope Francis gave to the Vatican officials – listing the fifteen ‘sins’ –which point out to the vices of clericalism.
The pandemic has loosened the hold of the clergy on the laity, because common liturgical celebrations (one time obligatory!) are banned. This has enabled the laity to take leadership. There are ‘House Churches’ now. “Confined to their hommes, families are realizing that a Church is not four walls. Like the first Christians, we too are gathering in ‘house churches’ to pray and to sing, and reflect on life in the light of Scripture. (A daily custom that always prevailed especially among Syrian Christians of Kerala. added)… More often than not, it is the woman of the house who presides at these services. Considered unworthy by the Church establishment to say the sacred words “This is my Body, this is my Blood,” it is the woman nevertheless who now gathers the ‘commmunity’ around the table to make holy the Sabbath.” (Ms. Astrid Lobo Gajiwala, JIVAN, Aug,20, p.10.). The role and function of women in the Church is another major scandal in the Church. Scandals are occasions, opportunities and invitations for reform. Continuous reforms make the Church true, young and dynamic as it manifests the presence and working of the Spirit – ever new and creative.