Bhausaheb Sansare S.J.
Rector, Papal Seminar, Pune

As you celebrate 125 year of the Papal Seminary, what are the main challenges you face?
We remember the grace of God working in the papal seminary. I like to recall the words of Pope Leo XIII: “Your children will bring the Good News of salvation to all.” That itself indicated to me a lot though. I was not in Papal for years. Pope recognized the potential of Indian missionaries, that they can bring the Good News of salvation to their own country. That was the best thing I could discover during the jubilee celebration of Pune Papal Seminary. In today’s context our country has many challenges and difficulties to confront. How to meet this challenges? The challenges that should be first tackled are not those created by the outside world, but the challenges that are our own creation. Then only can we turn our attention to the challenges outside the Church. Most of us pay attention to outside challenges, ignoring the challenges that are disturbing the Church itself. The papal Seminary is serving the Church across the country and has reached out to the people at the peripheries. Everything is possible, we have done through our pastoral ministries, educational ministries, social ministries and all possible ministries. But then I ask myself, why do people speak against us? As a Church, whenever natural calamities take place, we are there, the first one to serve the people. Still some criticize us. Of course, there may be some political agenda behind it. But why doesn’t appreciation come from our own people? We need to say that our brother priests are working and doing something great. I think some appreciation can help us a lot. So the first challenge that I encounter is: Can I appreciate my fellow brother priest? We need very generous heart to appreciate. I personally believe in one thing, you and I are not generous enough. Now, we have misunderstood in a sense, we glorify God and we would like to give glory to God. It is not something in the air. Can we praise, glorify, thank and appreciate God? The entire creation is called to praise. I think we need to learn first to appreciate people. We need to be generous enough; generous with our time, generous with our energy and generous with our talents and skills. We people are blessed with many gifts and talents, which we need to give in the service of others. The second challenge that I encounter is that we are not finding or discovering God in the human being. We are spending hours together before the Blessed Sacrament. The Eucharistic Lord, whom I discover in the Blessed Sacrament, should help me find God in my fellow priests and in fellow human beings. Today we have practically many projects to ensure human dignity. I discover and realize the divine presence in human beings, because, for me, divinity and dignity go together. The moment I discover dignity and divine presence in my fellow human being, however weak or sinful he or she may be, that will help me to do justice to the person.

You are the rector of a seminary that has a legacy of hundred and twenty-five years and has produced thousands of priests. Priesthood, as Vatican II defines it, is more of a leadership of the Christian Community. What are the pain, agony, challenges and adventures you meet in the exercise of that leadership?
Yes, this great seminary has formed thousands of priests. The basic thing Vatican II has asked us is to make the people center of the Church. The link between priests and the people is service, and today to a great extent we do not understand the concept of servant leadership. What does it mean to us? In priesthood, life is elevated high to serve the poorest among the poor. We are missing that concept; the servant leadership. The biggest hindrance for service is selfishness. The moment selfishness takes over us, the service aspect disappears. Many priests say, when we were young, we did this and we were doing, and we all praise the missionaries. I am happy that we praise the missionaries. Why don’t we praise those among us who do the same? Why can’t we do what our missionaries did? Why can’t we do better with the assistance of technology? I know a young priest, who was doing fantastic work when he was in the seminary. But in his priestly ministries for some reason that eagerness has dropped down. I think where ego comes eagerness drops down. When the ego dominates, then we are not eager to serve the people. These two aspects, selfishness and egoistic attitude, are hazardous to the priestly ministry. As human beings, we all have this problem. But, being priests for the people, we need to be a little more aware of our selfish nature. With experience, with education, with exposure, one can avoid the danger of becoming egoistic.

There are two aspects in priesthood training; the correct motivation and the right discipline. Which of these do you think is a more serious issue among seminarians?
It is in the disciplinary life. I always tell people, if we want to be a good disciples of Christ then we must be disciplined. Discipleship and discipline go together. If I have decided to be a good disciple of Christ, then I would want to follow discipline. We insist in the Papal Seminary that you are chosen by God out of His love for you to be His follower, His disciple, His apostle. Now, it’s your responsibility with His freedom, with His love to discipline yourself. It is the individual responsibility of the seminarians, and we accompany them to achieve it. Our accompaniment is also very vital and very important. The moment we do not accompany them, then the discipline aspect gets diverted to something else.

There is a criticism against the Papal Seminary gives a lot of freedom. Some feel more discipline is needed. How can freedom and discipline coexist?
what we are trying here and the episcopal Commission has asked us to do is the examine of conscience and consciousness. Consciousness and conscience are two different things. If I do examine of conscience every six hours, or at least ones a day, I think discipline will automatically come. Because I am a judge to myself, I know what is really happening in my life. St Ignatius insisted on purity of intention behind every action and every word that you utter. Pure intension is very important, and I would rather suggest, we need a discipline but not the forced one. It has to come out of conviction. Are we devotees out of fear? We are not; we should not be devotees out of fear.

Another criticism is that priests today are becoming more of pujaries, more of ritual people than prophets. Do you think this duality is well balanced?
Why are we becoming pujaries? Why are we not becoming prophets? Each one wants to be a prophet. Priests are most of the time prophets, but to whom? We are prophets to the higher authorities. Do we really become prophets to the world? Most of the time we insist on being pujaries, that we should become men and women of prayers. I always believe that the prayers we recite should make us prayerful persons, but today we are not prayerful persons. Sometimes we give fantastic reflection in the chapel or in the parish, but the moment we come to the refectory our prayerfulness disappears. What is the value system that operates in our lives? If we know the value system that operates in our lives, those values will guide our lives. The value system in my life will help me to really celebrate the Eucharist. The grace of God is very rich. If I value it, then a great responsibility lies on me as a priest.

Pope Francis is very outspoken about clericalism. Even at the Synod there are repeated references to clericalism. Do you think it’s a serious problem for the Indian Church?
It does affect us. I remember, after finishing our general chapter of congregation in 2016 in Rome, the newly elected general asked us to be aware of clericalism. We become clerics, and we limit our office to managing documents. In ordination, we are given special grace to reach out to the people. The vows we have taken are not just for ourselves, for personal sanctification, but for the mission; for making ourselves available. We can move with the people. Today, the grace we receive during the ordination has not become a kind of revolution. The grace should lead. We need to identify that grace.

There is a strange combination between clericalism and sexual abuse. What do you think is the relation between them?
Most of us feel insecure. We feel ourselves insecure, and I personally believe my insecurity comes out of my insincerity. If you are insincere to yourself, definitely insecurity will set in. With regard to the sexual abuse or other harassment, the persons involved are not able to find divine presence in others. If I find divine presence in you, then my attitude towards you will be one that sees you as a child of God entrusted to my care. As a priest we need to develop that attitude, to find divine presence in the others. Divinity exists in every human being. I think that attitude will minimize sexual abuse. Secondly, we are not doing examination of conscience. I believe everything else can betray you, but your conscience will never ever betray you. Conscience plays a very vital role in character formation.

At present, missionary life is in crisis. It is dampened by fundamentalism, parochialism and communalism. Is the Christian community also becoming communal?
We have to understand the system. Why is the Indian system like that? I don’t want to blame the present government alone, because it has a history behind it. It is not a one-day affair. They were struggling in the past, somebody else ruled them. The Church shouldn’t be communal. But we are becoming communal. We failed to understand mission work. If you allow me to define mission work, though I am not a theologian, from my personal experience I can say that the mission of Christ has to be understood as two. One is the mysteries of the life of Christ and the second is the misery that is there in human life. Most of us do not understanding the miseries of human life. In exodus chapter 3, Yahweh tells Moses, “I have seen the sufferings of my own people with my own eyes. I have seen their miseries; therefore, I am sending you.” If we do not take part in the struggles of the people, it means we are not clear about our mission. We are worried about simple ordinary things. People are worried about tomorrow. To understand the depth of the mission, we need really reflect on the mysteries of the life of Christ. If we understand the mission from the mysteries of Christ, I think we will be the first ones to overcome all this.