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I was a perpetually professed member of a religious institute, and worked as staff nurse of a prestigious hospital. Due to some personal issues, I left the institute a year ago. I was drawing a good salary for past ten years for the institute. Now I continue my nursing profession in another hospital. Some people have advised me to demand a huge sum from the institute. Can I make such demand?

Religious profession is an act of commitment based on religious faith. By the profession, any income received by the religious as salary, pension, subsidy, insurance, or under any other title, remains with the Institute (CIC c. 668 §3; CCEO cc. 468, 529 §3).  The Institute in return assumes the obligation of supplying what is necessary according to the proper law of each Institute. Therefore, one who leaves the Institute has no right to claim for oneself any remuneration for the service or ministry s/he rendered while being a member of the Institute.

Whatever the modality of separation, Canon 702 §1 of CIC and canon 503 §1 of CCEO legally exclude the right of the departed member to demand compensation for her work in the Institute. This norm must be viewed in the light of the understanding of religious profession. It is clear that it is unfair to lodge a petition in civil court against the Institute by the dismissed member for any kind of monetary allowances or for continuation of any ministry (job). When a former member demands such payment, it may be because of seeing a Religious Institute as merely any other Trust or Voluntary Organization.

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Sr Navya Thattil OSF

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12^th May: 

International Nurses Day

May 12 is the birthday of Florence Nightingale, “the Lady with a Lamp.” And the world, fittingly, celebrates International Nurses Day. The theme of the day for 2022 is: Nurses: A Voice to Lead – Invest in nursing and respect rights to secure global health. The theme focusses on “the need to protect, support and invest in the nursing profession to strengthen health systems around the world.”

May we never forget the millions of nurses who fought the onslaught of Coronavirus 19. Today, it is appropriate that we think of securing their rights and respect for nurses all over the world. No payment is enough for the lives they touch and heal.

I propose three words as a way of rendering honour towards nurses all over the world:

1. Respect: Nursing is not primarily about money. It’s about service to humanity – to the broken bodies, minds, hearts and souls. It calls for sacrifice to serve day in and day out. It demands undying commitment to be at the bedside of the sick. It takes great deal of courage to face all kinds of diseases. They deserve respect, honour and justice.
2. Gratitude: A thank you note from the patient or their dear one’s can certainly lift up the spirit of nurses. They are human beings like any of us. A care-giver does need care expressed in a simple note of appreciation or a token of gratitude.
3. Vocation: For a healthy and happy world, it needs more generous young people who will offer their life in the service of humanity as nurses. The quality of life of a society can be gauged with the care given to the weakest. Millions of sick people need to know that they matter. And the world needs millions of generous young people to tell them that through health care.

I was moved to tears by the performance of Northwell Health Nurse Choir at “America’s Got Talent” Season 16 in 2021. The audition got the golden buzzer with emotional words of appreciation and affection from the judge Howie Mandel. The show capsules thousands of untold heroics and commitment of the millions of nurses. It inspires hope and carries respect and gratitude that we owe to the huge army of nurses all over the world. I suggest that you watch it too to be touched by their performance and stories.

15^th May:

International Day of Families

The theme of the International day of Families of 2022 is “Families and New Technologies.”

Social media and more importantly personal media are invading the private and hallowed space of families. Marriages are breaking up on account extra-marital affairs augmented by indiscrete use personal media; Impersonal relationships and familial disconnect are on the increase. Intimacies and close bonds of families are replaced by digital bonding and virtual relationships.

In such scenario, strengthening of family life is a sure protection against the tendency to seek refuge in the virtual world.  Relationships among siblings, parents and children need to fostered through various family moments, such as meals, prayer, dialogue, picnics, outings, etc. In addition, ground rules for the use of personal media should be laid down so that they do not encroach the sacred times of family life.

The governmental, non-governmental, religious and social institutions have to make a concerted effort to protect, promote, preserve and re-instate the pristine dignity and absolute importance of family life to provide a healthy environment for children’s growth.

Addressing a gathering of Catholic men’s and women’s association at Ranchi, Benjamin Lakra, ex IAS officer, gave three decisive tips to create a happy family:

1. Daily prayer moment as a family: God is the origin and source of a family. He unites a man and a woman in a marital union and blesses their conjugal love with children. A family needs to live by this spiritual truth and nourish itself every day through family prayer.
2. One Daily meal as a family: A family meal binds, bonds and unites members of a family emotionally and spiritually. Hence, a family must come together at least for one meal every day.
3. Welcome a guest as a family: When every member of a family welcomes a guest, respect and esteem is accorded not only to the guest, but also to every member of that family. This is a very important message for children and the aged members of a family.

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Fr Shilanand Kerketta SDB

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Miracle in the Woods

Director: Arthur Allan Seidelman * Cast:  Della Reese, Meredith Baxter, Patricia Heaton, Anna Chlumsky, Gina Weatherby, Sanaa Lathan, David Hunt, Randy Brooks. (1997. 92 minutes.)

            On their mother’s death, the estranged sisters, Sarah and Wanda, arrive to claim their family property. Conflict arises when Wanda wants to keep the grove, whereas the selfish Sarah wants to sell it in order to settle her financial troubles. Their plans are overturned when they discover that an elderly black woman named Lilly Cooper has been a tenant in the grove.  She refuses to leave, claiming legal rights to the property and tries to drive them away at gunpoint.  Sarah’s rebellious teenaged daughter Gina loves the wild woods and stumbles into Lilly’s house. She makes friends with the old lady, who has a tale to tell. Gina records Lilly’s story which goes back to the 1920s.The young and innocent Lilly had married a man of her dreams. But her husband turned out to be a bootlegger who ill-treated her. When she was unable to work, her husband took her little son Henry and handed him over to someone. Rendered homeless, Lilly was given refuge by Sarah and Wanda’s mother and had settled on the grove in her little home in the company of her pets. Before her death, the old woman had given Lilly rights to the property. Sarah and Wanda are caught in the dilemma of how to send Lilly out of the cottage. Gina, who had experienced little love from her mother, finds a mother figure in Lilly. She takes much trouble tracing Henry, who is now middle-aged. He had always lived under the impression that his mother had never loved him. It requires much persuasion to affect a reunion of mother and son.  The sickly Lilly, evacuated from her home, is dying when they find Henry, who arrives at the last moment to a tearful reunion and a realization that his mother had longed for him all her life. The selfish Sarah learns a precious lesson from the experience, of compassion and repentance for her callousness. The story cut across race and class to show how human beings can connect meaningfully as a caring, loving family.

Lena: My One hundred Children

Director: Edwin Sherin * Cast: Linda Lavin, Cynthia Wilde, Torquil Campbell, Lenore Harris, George Touliatos (1987. 100 minutes)

This is adapted from the real-life story of a heroic Jewish woman, Lena Kuchler-Silberman, whose search for her lost daughter ends up with her becoming a real-life permanent surrogate mother with a hundred orphans in her hands from the concentrations camps. She studied philosophy, psychology and pedagogy, took up career as a teacher, educator and psychologist. She lost her infant daughter to malnutrition. She lived disguised as a Polish Catholic and worked underground to save Jewish children in Warsaw.  In the spring of 1945, immediately after the War, she encounters a small group of traumatized and lost children ranging from toddlers to teenagers, living in dire conditions who were distrustful and sometimes even violent. These had all lost their biological parents. Overwhelmed by the experience, Lena assumes the role of surrogate mother, undertakes to bring them together and offer protection, comfort and education. She gains the confidence of the children. With great determination and insistence, she struggles with the official confusions, hostilities of an anti-Semitic social environment. Poland is now under Soviet control. She is able to settle the children in a home. But the children are bullied and physically abused by the locals. Finding that Poland is not safe, Lena and the children take a long trek through the forests, bribe the border guards with money and vodka, and loads her children on a train bound for Czechoslovakia, and from there to France,  before she could finally take them to their ‘Promised Land,’ the newly formed state of Israel.  Her children grew up to become normal citizens of their new nation serving the country in various capacities.  Lena’s love and courage saved over a hundred children.

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Prof Gigy Joseph

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Volume I: Psycho-Sexual Integration; Volume II: Celibate Maturity.

(Salesian Psychological Association & South Asian Formation Commissions of the Salesians, 2012. xxxiii+1047 pages.)

This two-volume set is, without doubt, the most up-to-date and comprehensive source we have on this topic. Its twenty-nine chapters, written by a team of competent and experienced religious, priests and Catholic laypersons, present the different aspects of the issue in a clear and appealing manner. It is not a textbook for beginners, but a source book. Each chapter carries, in addition to very useful material on the topic discussed, a detailed bibliography, as well as questions for discussion and names of relevant movies on the topic.

The book was prepared this way: Each writer wrote the chapter or chapters he/she had undertaken to write, and circulated it to the other nineteen writers. Then, the writers met for the first “book build.” Here, mutual feedback on the manuscripts was given. Based on the comments and suggestions received, each writer re-wrote the respective chapters and circulated them to the other writers. Then, the group met again, for the second “book build.” More feedback followed. Learning from it, each writer wrote a third draft of his/her assigned chapters. It is this third draft that was accepted for publishing.

The book, then, is no haphazard collection of random reflections, but a well-planned and systematic presentation of psycho-sexual integration and celibate maturity.

The titles of the 29 chapters give us and idea of the contents of the book:

1. Psycho-Sexual Maturity and God’s Call to Wholeness and Holiness; 2. Human Maturity and Psychosexual Integration. 3. Healthy Emotional Life. 4. An Emotionally Integrated Person: Some Characteristics. 5.  Disadvantage, Resilience and Human Maturity. 6.  Stages in Psychosexual Development. 7. The Sexual Body. 8. Sexual Orientation and Sexual Behaviour. 9. Male and Female Experiences of Sex and Love. 0. Sexual Harassment and Sexual Abuse. 11. Healing from the Effects of Sexual Abuse: How Formators and Spiritual Directors can Help. 12. Celibate Chastity: A Different Way of Loving. 13.  Psychosexual and Celibate Integration at Midlife and Beyond. 14. Psycho-sexual Integration and Happy Celibate Life: Conditions and Helps. 15. Celibate Friendship. 16. The Role of Spiritual Direction in Psycho-Sexual and Celibate Integration. 17. Role of Counselling and Psychotherapy in Psycho-Sexual and Celibate Integration. 18. Psycho-sexual Integration in Marriage. 19. Psycho-Sexual Integration, Mature Celibacy and the Spiritual Journey. 20. Formation for a Meaningful Celibate Life: Three Levels of Responsibility. 21. Assessment of Candidates to the Priesthood and Religious Life. 22. Accompaniment of Candidates Toward Priesthood and Religious Life. 23. Healthy and Effective Formator. 24. Professional Ethics and the Formator. 25. Respecting and Managing Personal and Professional Boundaries. 26, Gender Sensitivity and Celibate Maturity. 27. Indian Law on Sexual Abuse and Violence. 28. Canon Law on Sexual Abuse and Exploitation. 29. Psycho-Sexual Integration, Celibate Maturity and Formation.

We would recommend this two-volume set highly to religious superiors, particularly to those involved in the formation of religious sand seminarians. Considering the number of pages and the quality of productions, we find he price more than reasonable.

(The same team has also brought out six volumes on FORMATION TOWARDS PSYCHOSEXUAL AND CELIBATE INTEGRATION, to be used at the different stages of formation. These volumes are non-technical, clearly written textbooks meant for formees at different stages.)

Both the two-volume resource book and the six textbooks for formees are available from Kristu Jyothi Publications, Bangalore560036.

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Jose Parappully SDB & Jose Kuttianimattathil SDB.

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Excellent Guidelines on Budgeting

Magnet is really magnetic.

I went through all the articles of March issue of MAGNET. “Budget: Financial Planning” by Fr. Alex Gnanapragasam S.J is very informative and a road map to achieve specific goals. Budget helps us to plan, prioritize the essentials among the basic needs. Money is a necessary evil and if we have to be transparent and make our limited resources a positive good, planning and budgeting are very essential. Fr Alex has very clearly brought out the kinds of budget, its activities and goals, how it has to be prepared. Once a proper Budget is prepared, we can move in the right direction. That is our spirituality. I think we all agree that Budgeting is the beginning of wisdom in financial management. We need to discern before we begin to spend our hard earned money. Fr Alex’s articles give us the role of our economers:  how to make a standard  j+udgement on what is basic and what is discretionary.

Sr Emy Adapur FS

Paduvary, Byndoor, Karnataka 576214

Top Priorities: Correct! Financial Mismanagement: True!

I’m sorry for this very late feedback on your excellent article “Religious in India Today: Top Priorities.”

I’m writing this a few minutes before I leave for the airport to Dumaguete City to accompany the Carmelite Sisters on their Holy Week retreat.

I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t express my deep appreciation of your great and very useful insights regarding the actual living of our consecrated life.

The ten aspects you treat in the article really ask for discernment and urgent response.

The examples you give are very real. They are our day-to-day experiences as religious.

Your observation about how we usually pay more attention to trivial practices of poverty, like requiring the juniors and the scholastics to submit a detailed account of their expenses at the end of the month, along with tickets and receipts, is so true. At the same time, we waste a lot of money on unwise and mismanaged construction projects.

I know of a congregation in the Philippines that spent USD 10,000,000 to build a gym which is now practically useless.

Another congregation imported a crane for its school-building construction project. It could have just rent one from the vicinity.

I also like your comment on collaboration with the laity. The ideal is to collaborate with them and not to ask them to collaborate for us.

I have to stop here; it is time for me to leave for the airport

Fr Samuel Canilang CMF, Manila, Philipppines

Touching and Thought-Provoking

As usual, MAGNET is very thought provoking. I loved both your editorial and your article on poverty. It mirrors all of us who have committed ourselves as Christians and as consecrated people and speaks about our fear of giving too generously of ourselves. It is as though we give only in measured quantities as we are fearful. This I feel is one of the obstacles to living poverty more honestly. But we are in serious danger of becoming counter witnesses if we do not do this courageously. And we, the organised church, have to take a brave and courageous look at ourselves and what we stand for. Else we are in danger of becoming irrelevant and extinct.

I loved some of the beautiful and poignant human interest stories: the one by Sr. Theresa Viegas about the heroic woman who lost her own child and was then parenting two other children, all the while looking like an ordinary person externally, though she was doing such a remarkable, extraordinary thing! The testimony of the doctor from Sion Hospital was very real for me as a medical professional as this is something that I could easily identify with and see everyday. Thank you also for writing a tribute to healthcare workers.

The example of the very real battle for saving the life of a baby in NICU caught in the midst of s social maelstrom was very touching and heartwarming. Fr Jose’s article on synodality is particularly apt for our times and will hopefully help us navigate away from a top heavy system, into a more inclusive one.

I loved your positive and enlivening examples of poverty heroically lived, giving joy to both the person living it, as well the one witnessing it. The write-ups by some of your authors on actual persons was very thought-provoking, such as the one about the environmentalist Jane Goodall. Your article on suicides was painful to read but is very necessary and something that we cannot hide from; thank you for sharing it. Hopefully knowing and being aware is the first step in preventing at least some of the suicides.

Dr Ann Agnes Mathew, Bangalore

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In his book, Clowning in Rome, the famous priest-psychologist Henri Nouwen, author of about forty books on psycho-spiritual topics,  has this to say about the link between celibacy and poverty: “A rich celibate is like a fat sprinter—a contradiction in terms.”

Just as I cannot be fat and paunchy, and expect to be the fastest sprinter, I cannot be rich and claim to be celibate. I can be a rich bachelor or spinster—not a rich celibate. Why?

Jesus did not mention celibacy as a condition for discipleship. In fact, as we know, the one He chose to head his followers was a married man—Peter. Marriage was never mentioned in the New Testament as an obstacle for following Jesus. What was mentioned as the root of all evil—by Paul, in one of his letters to the early Christians—was love of money.

Jesus had said that we cannot serve God and mammon. We cannot be true followers of Jesus if love of money drives us.

The choice of a celibate way of life is not for teaching economics or mathematics, or for writing accounts for the provincial, or being principal or administrator. None of these jobs requires celibacy. If we are recruiting young people mostly or mainly to staff our institutions, and call it “vocation promotion,” it is a huge misnomer.

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Joe Mannath SDB

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Lend me ………….

Lend me a chance………………….

Lend me a chance to prove………

Lend me a chance to prove my love for you.

Time and time again I spoke in simple syllable

Give me a chance to speak again without hurting

To write the right without cutting or over writing

To say sorry or thanks, for the truth that lies in every lie.

To save and safeguard the name and fame

To undo the mistake and delete the wrong

To hold back all whom I have pushed out

To feel for you as you feel for me.

Lend me a Lent…….

To come back to you with all my heart

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Sr Mariella CTC
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I had seen Ella a few times in the church on the back bench, but her disfigured face had made me to turn the other side and ignore her presence. This day our paths crossed each other and I was forced to get into a conversation. Ella said she had a desire to talk to a sister, yet her shame and fear kept her away. When I stopped to listen, she came out this most moving true story.

From Romance to Rejection

While she was still in high school, a young man belonging to another religion fell for her beauty, Her parents were against inter-religious marriage. Intoxicated with their youthful love, she left her home and settled in a distant land. After five years of life together, and with a little baby girl of four years, things started turning sour. One day, under suspicion that Ella flirts with other men, her husband pushed her on to the fire while she was cooking and left for better prospects with a woman he loved. A kind-hearted neighbour helped Ella to recover in the hospital. After a month, when she returned to her rented room, she had no idea of what had happened to her child. Her world had been shattered. Since she had cut off all her family ties, she could not think of returning to her native village with a disfigured face. So, to make ends meet, she took up washing dishes for families.

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Sr Theresa Viegas PBVM

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Amendments regarding taxation of Charitable Trusts in Finance Bill 2022

Charitable Trusts enjoy exemption from income tax, since they play a vital role in enriching our cultural heritage and catering to the educational, medical, socio-economical and religious needs of the people. But, in the garb of charity, there have been instances where the Charitable Trusts have misused the tax benefits given to them.  Quite often it goes unnoticed too. To plug such loopholes, significant amendments were proposed in the previous budgets. The Finance Bill 2022 has made further proposals to rationalize the provisions related to the Charitable Trusts to bring uniformity, clarity on taxation in the specified circumstances and ensure their effective monitoring and implementation.

Presently, Charitable Trusts can claim exemption in respect of their income under two regimes:

1. a) Trusts registered under Section 10 (23C) (hereinafter referred to as the “first regime”); and
2. b) Trusts registered under Section 12AA/12AB (hereinafter referred to as the “second regime”).

Finance Bill 2022 proposes amendments under both regimes. Some amendments are made to bring constancy in the provisions of two regimes, while other amendments are made to clarify existing provisions. Such amendments are discussed in brief here below.

1. Bringing 10 (23C) on par with 12AB in terms of conditions

The Finance Bill 2022 has added various new conditions to organizations having approval under section 10(23C) (iv), (v), (vi) & (via) which effectively takes away all the advantages it had before. The new conditions applicable to section 10(23C) are:

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Fr Alex G. SJ

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Speaking about what she likes best about the process of decision-making in her community, Sister Virginia said, “We place what is to be decided as an agenda for community meeting.  We give up our own ideas and accept what is good for the community.  Then we work towards the execution of the decision arrived at.”   Sr Lissy, belonging to another congregation, said, “What I like best is that we talk together on all topics related to our community living.  We generally decide everything together and people volunteer to do different things… Every Friday night we have adoration overnight when we each take an hour of prayer. I found it really helpful.  We also have weekly lectio divina.  We really try to care for one another. Being an international community, there’s much diversity in the way we do things, but everyone tries her best to learn to live well together.”

            Our communities are called to be synodal communities.  And an area that needs special attention for becoming a synodal community is to understand and take care of the way we arrive at decisions in a community.  Some superiors feel that, if they have to listen to everyone before making a decision, then their authority is weakened and their experience and expertise are not given due recognition.  Others feel that it requires too much time to listen to all, and so it is best to tell them what to do, rather than arrive at a decision together.   However, a synodal Church is a Church of participation and co-responsibility.  The Church requires that “Even if true and appropriate discernment is reserved to the most important decisions, the spirit of discernment ought to characterize every decision-making process that involves the community.”(CICLSAL, The Service of Authority and Obedience, 20e).

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Fr Jose Kuttianimattathil SDB

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