The Archbishop of the Latin Archdiocese of Thiruvananthapuram, Thomas J. Netto, advised people not to fall into the trap of attempts from various corners to dissuade and divide the fisher folk over the issue of the seaport. Intensifying the protest against the Vizhinjam seaport, a pastoral letter was read out in all churches under the Latin Archdioceses during the Sunday mass on August 28. The Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Conference has supported the agitation. This is perfectly in line with the famous Vimochnana Samaram (Liberation Agitation) against the Marxist government in Kerala in the 1950s and the college agitation later. George W. Bush was asked who his favourite philosopher was. He answered, Jesus Christ. He would have found himself in the company of Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. Nobody doubted the theology behind the protests and call it unChristian. Even Gandhi and other activists were inspired by Jesus’ teaching. Individuals who neither submit passively nor retaliate violently suddenly find in themselves a new sense of strength, dignity and courage. There was no middle way between war and pacifism. The most outstanding medieval essay on peace, Peace Protests, belongs to Desiderius Erasmus. He was dissatisfied with a choice between “just war theory” and “pacifism”. Pope John XXIII startled the world by moving swiftly to engage the Roman Catholic Church within the political and economic realities of the 20th century. This new attitude of Vatican II included a recognition of nonviolence in resisting war: “We cannot fail to praise those who renounce the use of violence in the vindication of their rights and who resort to methods of defence which are otherwise available to weaker parties, too, provided this can be done without injury to the rights and duties of others or of the community itself.” (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World 85).We see Pope Francis is supporting demands for racial justice in the wake of killing of George Floyd by the US police. In “Let Us Dream”, published in December 2020, Pope Francis also criticizes populist politicians who whip up rallies in ways reminiscent of the 1930s and the hypocrisy of “rigid” conservative Catholics who support them. The biblical God does not encourage any escapism. He is not an abstract transcendence, aloof from all secular concerns. On the contrary, he is the God involved in history, opening new possibilities, the God of the open future. His basic revelation in the Old Testament is the Exodus, an event of liberation. He manifests in the New Testament the truth of the way of Jesus of Nazareth, which is the truth of life. He lived in unconditional solidarity with men, particularly with those who were oppressed and poor. In the perspective of hope, this involvement is never in vain or meaningless. It is worthwhile not to give up, but instead to strive, despite all possible and real difficulties, toward a change of all those conditions under which man is an oppressed, enslaved, destitute, and despised being. Jesus’ self awareness is thus stated: “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.”(Jn 9:39). The pathos of life is the very giving of life to the other. The Marxist slogan “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” is very Christian. The Catholic Church has tried to develop what Cardinal Joseph Bernadin named “a consistent ethic of life.” The Latin American theologian Gutierrez asserts that Christians have a unique role to play in identifying with the exploited and oppressed in order to resist this injustice. He claims that “many Christians… poor or rich… have deliberately and explicitly identified with the oppressed on our continent… This is the major fact in the recent life of the Christian community in Latin America.” Again he wrote, “Within a society where social classes are in conflict, we are true to God when we side with the poor, the working classes, the despised races, the marginal cultures.”
The Vizhinjam Seaport was a legally right decision taken by a democratically elected government and ratified both by the Central government and the State government. Still, we find the protest ethically justifiable; the church apparently supports it. Marx called Capital a vampire. Human community everywhere can become prey to blood sucking vampires. When history becomes a contradiction between one’s conscience and one’s life, we have to enter history to create just systems.