Candles In The Dark

Are you surprised that I have picked a former U.S. President to be this issue’s ‘candle in the dark’? Let me assure you, by the time you finish reading this column you’ll agree that Jimmy Carter truly deserves the epithet.

Carter was born in 1924 in a small town called Plains in the southern State of Georgia in the U.S. His father, Earl Carter, was a successful peanut farmer and his mother, Lillian Gordy Carter, was a registered nurse. At the age of 68, Lillian chose to travel to India as a Peace Corps volunteer. After his college studies, Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy.   After marrying Rosalynn Smith, a friend of his sister, he began serving in the U.S. Navy, but his career abruptly ended in 1953 when his father died. He resigned from the Navy and returned to Georgia to manage his family’s peanut farm.

His political career began in 1962 when he was elected twice to the Georgia state senate. In 1966 he failed in his bid to become the Governor. He referred to himself as a born-again Baptist and his Christian faith gave him the strength to run again in 1970 and win. He announced that “the time for racial discrimination is over” and proceeded to open Georgia’s government offices to Blacks and to women. His initiatives took him to the cover of Time magazine as a symbol of good governance.

FR M A JOE ANTONY SJ

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Tom Hiney, a priest-writer, describes her as “without doubt one of the most influential British Catholics of the modern era.” Interestingly, this highly influential British Catholic spent most of her long life in Kolkotta, India. Her name is Sr. Mary Frederick, M.C. But Mary Frederick is not her original name. She was baptized Helen Gladys Douglas. Her father, Frederick Douglas, was a government clerk in London and moved to Malta to serve the British Army during the First World War and, except for a few years, lived in Malta all his life.

Helen studied in a school, run by the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition, where catechism was given a lot of importance. Hiney describes what happened one day, when she was around ten years old. She was swimming near their beach house, with Doris, her elder sister, watching from the beach. Helen got her foot caught in something and her head began to disappear under the water and Doris froze in panic. Helen, realizing that she was probably going to die, remembered what she had been taught by the Sisters and made an act of contrition. The next minute she felt like someone pushing her out of the water. Her foot came loose and she swam to shore.

FR M A JOE ANTONY SJ

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She has been physically assaulted 17 times. Someone tried to fling acid on her face. Another time a van deliberately rammed the auto rickshaw she was riding. They have tried to poison her. In 2012 a mob tried to attack one of her centres. But Sunitha Krishnan is not afraid. She says that these assaults have only steeled her resolve to carry on her crusade against human trafficking.

Sunitha Krishnan was born in 1972 in Bangalore to Malayali parents who were from Palakkad in Kerala. Since her father worked in the Department of Survey that makes maps for the entire country, he was frequently transferred. So, Sunitha and her family had to move to different places as she grew up.

But she was constantly thinking of others. When she was just eight years old, she started teaching dance to mentally challenged children. Before she was twelve, she was running schools in slums for the poor slum children. At the age of fifteen, while working on a neo-literacy campaign for the Dalit community, Sunitha was gang raped by eight men. They did not like the changes she tried to usher into their society. The violent beating that she suffered that day made her partially deaf in one ear.

“Suddenly my life changed. I was pure and then I went down, in terms of becoming the most cursed human being and the most dishonored person. Everything I had been I was no longer. I saw another world, where my family cursed my existence and parents would tell their children not to talk to me because I would be a bad influence…My eyes opened to the world of reality. That is when my gods were giving me signs of where I should be and who I should be with. I was accused of a crime I didn’t commit; I was blamed for something I had never done, I was shamed and made to feel guilty for something I was not responsible. All that triggered an anger that drove me then and still drives me today,” says Sunitha.

FR M A JOE ANTONY SJ

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In all his obituaries, in addition to the well-known initials – SJ – that appeared after his name, I was intrigued to find another two initials – AC. Eventually I found that they referred to the award with which the Australian government had honoured him – Companion of the Order of Australia – which is the highest civilian award for which an Australian can aspire. He was also awarded several honorary doctorates.

This month let me place on the candle stand a fellow Jesuit who is celebrated all over the world as a brilliant theologian and a prolific writer – Fr Gerald O’Collins, SJ, who died on 22 August 2024 at Melbourne, Australia at the age of 93.

Gerald, or ‘Gerry’ as he was often referred to, was born in 1931.  His father, Patrick Francis O’Collins, who was called simply ‘Frank’ by family and friends, was an army officer. During the First World War he served for some time in England, and, after the war, returned to Australia, studied law and built a lucrative career as an advocate in Melbourne. Since Gerry’s parents were hospitable and generous, they had many guests at home. His father, Frank, used to tell his children, “Don’t just go and greet the visitors. Engage them in conversation.” Michael Walsh, in an article in the Tablet, says this could have been “the foundation of Gerry’s lifelong capacity for friendship, his openness to people and ideas, his hospitality of mind and heart.”

M.A. Joe Antony, SJ

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Those who knew August-Francois Marceau in his early years would have never imagined that nearly 150 years later we will hold him up as a candle in the dark.

He was born on 1 March 1806 in France. His rich parents never bothered to raise him in Christian faith. Interested in ships and sailing, he joined the Ecole Polytechnique when he was 18. On graduating from the Polytechnic he joined the navy. When he was 20 years old, he set sail on a lengthy military cruise around the world. In 1829 he took part in what was called the Madagascar campaign and rescued a company of sailors who had been ambushed. This heroic adventure earned him the French award ‘Legion d’Honneur’ when he was just 23.

In 1835 he was made the commander of the steam-powered ship called L’Africain. During the voyage he was struck by malaria and was on the brink of death. He had to be brought back to France. A cousin of his, who was a pious Catholic, opened her home to the sick Auguste and looked after him tenderly. She placed a medal of the Blessed Virgin at his bedside and asked the members of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, founded in Paris by a priest that year, to pray earnestly for his cure. Six months later Auguste recovered. His cousin gave him the medal of the Blessed Virgin so that he would not forget his recovery, but he carelessly put it among his belongings. When he was not on duty, he indulged in a promiscuous, materialistic and frivolous life and blasphemed often.

Fr M.A. Joe Antony, SJ

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On 03 May 2024, while giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour in the U.S., to Fr Greg Boyle, SJ, President Joe Biden said, “Your service as a Jesuit priest over four decades reminds us of the power of redemption, rehabilitation and our obligation to those who have been condemned or counted out. Thank you, Fr. Greg, for your amazing grace.”

Fr Gregory Joseph Boyle, SJ was born on 19 May 1954 in Los Angeles, U.S. After he finished his studies, he became a Jesuits and was ordained a priest in 1984. He holds Master’s degrees in English, Divinity and Sacred Theology.

At the conclusion of his theology studies, Boyle spent a year working in Bolivia. Upon his return in 1986, he was appointed pastor of Dolores Mission Church, a Jesuit parish which happened to be the poorest Catholic parish in the city of Los Angeles. The area where the parish church was located happened to be the territory of eight gangs.

You must have heard of gangs active in many cities in the U.S. The youth who join these gangs engage in selling drugs and often resort to extreme violence. Why would youth join violent gangs, instead of studying and finding a job? Fr. Greg soon found the answer to that question. Some individuals become gang members to fulfill basic needs like food and clothing, as they come from extremely poor families. Some may join a gang for protection from rival gangs or the police. Coming from broken, abusive families many simply seek a sense of family, identity, or belonging.

The time when Fr Greg was the pastor was referred to as the “decade of death” (1988 – 1998) in Los Angeles, since nearly a thousand people were killed every year from gang- related crime.

Fr M.A. Joe Antony, SJ

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On 26 April 2024 more than 50,000 people, who had gathered for the National Assembly of Italian Catholic Action, cheered and applauded when Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, announced that Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati will be canonized next year, 2025, which happens to be a Jubilee Year. This announcement evoked jubilation not merely in Italy but also in other parts of the world where he is loved and admired.

Pier Giorgio Michelangelo Frassati was born in Turin, Italy on 6 April 1901. His father Alfredo, was the founder and editor of the newspaper, La Stampa. Later he became an Italian Senator and Ambassador to Germany.

His compassion towards the poor and eagerness to help them were revealed already in his childhood. Once, hearing a knock, he opened the door to find a mother and her son begging. Seeing that her little son had no shoes, he took off his shoes and gave them to the boy. When he was eight years old, his father refused to help a man who came to their house asking for help, because he was drunk. Seeing this Frassati went to his mother sobbing. She told him to go and find the man and bring him home. When Frassati did so, she asked the poor man to sit down and eat. Sometimes he would give away to the poor the money he had been given for the bus fare and then run home to be on time for meals.

Fr M.A. Joe Antony, SJ

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Do you know which country in the world is the most dangerous place for Catholic priests? The correct answer to that question is dipped in tragic irony, as it is a predominantly Catholic country. Mexico. More than 81 percent of its population are Catholics.

 In the last 15 years, more than 50 priests have been killed. Two Jesuit priests, Javier Campos Morales and Joaquin Cesar Mora Salazar, were murdered on 20 June 2022, in Cerocahui, Chihuahua, while attempting to help a man who was pursued by a criminal and so seeking refuge in their church. The murder of priests, pastoral workers, journalists and human rights activists has become part of daily life in Mexico.

In the six-year term of President Felipe Calderón from 2006 to 2012, 17 priests were killed, along with three religious. Under President Enrique Peña Nieto from 2012 to 2018, 26 priests were killed and two more disappeared and are still missing. In almost all the cases, the murders are linked to the infamous drug cartels that are involved in drug trafficking – which is an organized crime.

Fr M.A. Joe Antony, SJ

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A film that was released in the United States on 8 March ‘24, International Women’s Day, has found favour with both critics and audiences. The film quickly reached the fourth place in the U.S. box office. You may be surprised to know that the film is about a Catholic Sister and a saint. Her last name is the name of the film: Cabrini.

The biographical film is directed by Alejandro Gómez Monteverde, who is fond of making movies on religious themes to which American film critics are usually allergic. But most of them are praising this film. The film’s executive producer, Eustace Wolfington, said, “Muslims, atheists, and Christians saw the film, and they all say one thing: that they want to be like Cabrini.” The film was produced by Angel Studios, a company that also made the internationally successful series, The Chosen, about Jesus of Nazareth. Pope Francis watched some scenes from the film.

The film tells the real life story of Mother Frances Saverio Cabrini, who was born in 1850 in Lombardy, Italy. Cabrini’s original name was Maria Francesca Cabrini. When she took her religious vows in 1877, she changed her name to Frances Xavier, in tribute to the indefatigable Jesuit missionary, St. Francis Xavier.

FR M.A. JOE ANTONY, SJ

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This is how Sr. Norma Pimental, MJ, began a TED talk: “In 2014, I visited a detention facility where hundreds of little children, immigrant children, were detained for several weeks in conditions that were very heartbreaking. They were dirty and muddy and crying. Their faces were full of tears. I had the opportunity to go in and be with them. And they were all around me. They were little ones, some of them not older than five years old. And they were saying to me, ‘Get me out of here. Please, help me.’ It was so difficult to be there with them. I started to cry with them, and I told them, ‘Let us pray.’ And they repeated after me, ‘God, please, help us.’  As we prayed, I could see the Border Patrol officers looking through a glass window. They were on the verge of tears, as they heard the children praying. A little boy came closer and told me, ‘Please, help me. I want to be with my mother.  She was here, I was separated from her.’  When I walked out of the cell, an officer got close to me and said to me, ‘Sister, thank you. You have helped us realize that they too are human beings.’”

Sr Norma Pimentel, who belongs to the Missionaries of Jesus Congregation, has been for many years the Executive Director of Catholic Charities, the charitable arm of the Diocese of Brownsville in Texas, U.S.  In 2014 thousands of families tried desperately to leave their countries in Central America and seek asylum in the U.S.  Responding to this crisis, she set up Humanitarian Respite Centers, where hundreds of American volunteers took care of these poor and hungry asylum seekers. These efforts brought Sr Pimentel worldwide recognition. In March 2015, Pimentel spoke at the U.N. Headquarters in New York City. During the Papal visit to the U.S. that year, Sr Pimentel met Pope Francis in New York City and presented him with one of her original paintings of an immigrant mother and child. Before coming to work for Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, Pimentel was one of the leaders who directed Casa Oscar Romero, a refugee shelter that served Central Americans fleeing their war-torn countries in the 1980s. The shelter provided emergency relief and temporary housing for hundreds of thousands of refugees. It is there that she developed a passion for helping refugees and asylum seekers.

Fr M.A. Joe Antony SJ

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