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Carlos Welch, one of the founders of the Christian Counselling Centre, Vellore, and a counsellor who helped many, used to tell us, “Everybody needs counselling.” He also said, “As adults, we should stand on our own feet.”

I once asked him, “How do you put these two statements together?” They seemed to contradict each other.

His reply was simple and wise, “To be mature means to realize when you need help and seek it. There are times when the best thing we can do is to go to someone trustworthy and say, ‘I need help.’”

That is right. We all need help. No one is always strong.

Three Concentric Circles

Years ago, I saw the levels of our personality represented in a drawing. It was of three concentric circles.

Fr Joe Mannath SDB
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Here are some shocking statistics:

• In India, 21 people commit suicide out of every 100,000 persons.
• Suicide is the second highest cause of death in the 18-29 age group.
• An average of 370 to 380 persons commit suicide every day in India.
• Compared to other countries, the number of Indians affected by depression is high.

Here some statistics on suicides that should make us think—and act. (I am taking the following facts and figures from The Indian Express.) A report published in the Express on October 29, 2021 had this glaring title: 24.6 per cent of total suicides in 2020 by daily wage workers, NCRB data shows.

This report, written by Harikishan Sharma, sasys that the percentage of suicides by daily wage earners has doubled in seven years between 2014-2020.

Further, it gives these shocking figures:

“Amid the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, the number of suicides in the country increased by 10 per cent to 1.53 lakh in 2020 from 1.39 lakh a year ago… Suicides by students registered the highest increase of 21.20 per cent, followed by professional/salaried persons – 16.50 per cent and daily wage earners – 15.67 per cent.

The NCRB report ‘Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India 2020’ stated that suicides by students increased from 10,335 in 2019 to 14,825 in 2020 and their share in total suicides also went up from 7.4 per cent to 8.2 per cent during this period.”

Fr Joe Mannath SDB

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Allow me to use two quotes from my book, A Radical Love. They are words I heard from two knowledgeable and sincere “outsiders.”

One of the senior-most doctors at CMC Hospital, Vellore: “We would like to learn from Catholic priests and religious your dedication.” This experienced medical professional had come across extremely dedicated Catholic priests and religious.

An educated and very friendly Hindu lady, talking to Catholic friends: “I have come to know a number of Catholic priests and sisters rather well. I am not impressed by most. Before being members of special groups, you are human beings, like the rest of us, with all our weaknesses. If you have found ways of overcoming the human weaknesses we all face—greed, jealousy, anger, egoism—then, you have something to teach us. Otherwise, why should anyone come to you to learn?”

Joining a special group—a religious order, or the IAS, or an elite unit in the army, or a gym—is for a simple reason: to do more competently and more professionally what everyone is called to.

Speaking as an “insider” to other insiders, we will know our strengths and weaknesses even more clearly. We will be familiar with the saints, heroes, mediocrities and unsavoury characters among us.

All professional groups have heroes, mediocrities and utterly disappointing members. All groups officially claiming higher motivation and commitment to service have done inspiring, relevant, courageous service—and also disappointed.

When we discuss urgent priorities—whether in a family or one religious house or a whole religious order—opinions differ. That is why we have house assemblies, provincial chapters, general chapters, etc.—to listen to one another and to those for whom we work, to pray and discern God’s plans, and to choose the best options, rather than go for what is merely easy or the whim of a few.

Having met many religious of all ages and positions, and after listening to a good number in the intimacy of spiritual direction (where people reveal their deepest experiences and most painful problems, which do not come out in community discussions and WhatsApp messages), I see the following as our topmost priorities. I do not claim that this is the best list possible. It is more than likely that equally well-informed and sincere religious may tick off priorities differently.

Fr Joe Mannath SDB

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Around 2003 Johnnie Walker produced a short video to promote their whisky. It showed a school of fish moving in the same direction. The fish took a human form, and while swimming close to the surface, they started jumping out of the water. It was then that one of them, coming closer to shore, put his feet on the seabed, stood erect out of the sea and started walking. The caption of the video then read, “Take the first step. Keep walking.”

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

I had just inserted the key in the office door when I heard the phone ringing. It was 8.30 am. Since Monday was my day off, on Tuesdays I am usually welcomed with a lot of small papers pushed underneath the door by the inmates. I thought it was too early for the phone; so I did not answer it. While I was collecting all these bits of papers and skimming through the various requests, the phone rang again. This time I answered.

“Carmel, you’re the one that I want.” I recognized Deputy White’s voice. “Can you come to my booth as soon as possible, please?”

I left the papers on the desk, made sure that the door was locked behind me and walked down the hallway. That morning, Deputy White was working in the school dorm called “5550.” I knocked on the door and he buzzed me in the deputies’ booth—a small dark elevated room with a panel full of buttons which controlled everything which happened in the dormitory from opening and closing doors to putting on and off the lights. The whole room was surrounded by a thick dark glass window, thus, the deputies had a 270º view ranging from the open bathroom and showers, to the sleeping bunks and the recreation area where the TV was.  The deputies always kept the lights of their booth off so that the inmates could not see through the windows.

Bro Carmel Duca MC

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It was a usual Sunday morning. As I was getting ready to leave for Baghar, a slum in Howrah, where I have been spending the Sundays for the past several years, a phone call came from the coordinator of the projects there, asking me not to come as a tragedy had struck the place during the night before. Taken aback, I asked her for details. She told me that two young boys had got drowned in the pond in the middle of the slum while the  immersion of an idol was taking  place,  and that the whole community was in mourning. I expressed my shock at this tragic news and I told her that I would be coming shortly.

Pall of Gloom

Baghar is the garbage dumping ground of the Howrah Municipal Corporation. Every day. hundreds of trucks carrying waste materials collected from the corporation area dump them here. Several mountains of garbage dot the place. Some three hundred families, mostly migrants from Bihar, live around this dumping ground, eking out an  existence by collecting recyclable materials from  the garbage and selling them. The whole place reeks with slime and dirt and unbearable stench, and smoke envelopes the region. People live in highly unhygienic conditions under plastic sheets and in dilapidated huts. Children suffer from malnutrition and from sicknesses associated with unhygienic living conditions.

Eight years ago, the Don Bosco Development Society, the social work wing of the Salesians of Don Bosco in Kolkata, launched a programme in Baghar with a view to weaning  away the children and youth from collecting waste materials and putting them on to the path of  education and skill training.  A number of projects were launched—nutrition programme for babies, health camps, medical help, educational support, computer classes, drinking water supply, making of community toilets, low cost housing and educational tours. Over a period of time, these projects began to bear fruit. They made tangible changes in the slum, especially in the increased admission in schools and decreased school dropouts.

Fr Mathew George SDB

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St Joseph Cafasso, considered a model priest, lived in the city of Turin, Italy, in the 19^th century. He was given the nickname “the Priest of the Gallows” for his pastoral care of criminals, especially those condemned to death. He stood by their side as they were lead to the execution.

After his ordination, he went to Turin to attend one of the post-graduate courses at the Convitto Ecclesiastico (a resident institute for priests). He was then asked to teach there, and proved to be a brilliant lecturer.  He aimed at making the young priests not only learned but saintly men and efficient ministers of the Gospel.

Fr Cafasso spent long hours in the confessional. His fame for learning and sanctity attracted great numbers of penitents there. Besides teaching, he found time for other forms of apostolate, the chief of which were teaching catechism to poor children, visiting the sick and the various prisons of the city.

Visiting the Prisoners

The prisons during Fr Cafasso’s time were gloomy places infested with vermin. The prisoners were free to communicate with each other and the worst of them had the greatest influence in the prison. It was among these outcasts of society that Fr Cafasso spent most of his free time. He visited each prison at least once a week, and some of them once a day. He returned home each night bringing with him the vermin of the prison, which he jokingly called “living silver and moving riches.”

Fr Leon Cruz SDB

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An extraordinary man’s remarkable life came to an end the day after Christmas last year. It generated an outpouring of sorrow and tributes from all over the world. The people of South Africa, who lovingly called him ‘the Arch,’ felt devastated.  Thanks to a rare blend of qualities and gifts—a sharp intellect, a refreshing sense of humour, an infectious laughter, a ready wit, boundless compassion and courage in the face of threats—Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a much-admired and much-loved figure for decades.

Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born in a poor Methodist family on 7 October 1931 in Transvaal, South Africa. Later they shifted to the Anglican Church. He grew up watching the horrible implications of the cruel, racist apartheid system in South Africa that gave all the political power to the minority whites and discriminated against the blacks, who were the majority. In a system that rigidly segregated the citizens on the basis of their skin colour, the blacks had no right to vote.

After his high school, Tutu dreamed of becoming a doctor and managed to get admission in a medical college, but his parents could not afford the expensive fees. He courted Nomalizo Leah, a friend of his sister. Leah happened to be a Catholic and Tutu agreed to a Catholic wedding ceremony, after having their marriage registered. They both became teachers, but when the racist government, in a blatant attempt to promote inequality, passed the Bantu Education Act, which deliberately lowered the standards of education for black South Africans, they quit teaching. Tutu took to learning theology and was ordained an Anglican priest in 1961. Next year he went to England to earn a master’s degree in theology and returned to South Africa in 1967.

Not Revenge, but Reconciliation

Tutu spent some time in East Jerusalem, learning Arabic and Greek. He taught theology in South Africa for five years and then went again to England to be the vice-director of the Theological Education Fund of the World Council of Churches. When he returned to South Africa in 1975, he was appointed the Dean of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Johannesburg, then the Bishop of Lesotho in 1976 and the Bishop of Johannesburg in 1985. The very next year he became the first black person to hold the highest position in the South African Anglican Church—the Archbishop of Cape Town. He was named the president of the All Africa Conference of Churches in 1987—a position he held until 1997.

Fr M A Joe Antony SJ

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“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born, I set you apart; … I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” These words from the book of Jeremiah (1:5) are apt for my life and vocation.

I am the second child in the family. I have an older brother and a younger sister. Ours is a lower middleclass family in a remote village in Mangalore. Our house is surrounded by thick forest, full of greenery. Very beautiful place. We have a close-knit bond with our parish. My parents, very pious people, instilled in us love for God and our neighbours and the Kingdom values from our childhood. They provided us with an Old Testament story book and the Lives of the Saints. When we were small, mother used to read those books for us and we children and daddy sat near her and listened to her attentively. When we went to our maternal grandparents’ house, we heard moral and chivalrous stories. What joy it was to listen to them!

God called Abram when he was seventy-five year old, but He called me before I was formed in my mother’s womb. At the age of four my litany was: “I am going to become a Sister,” even though I could not even pronounce that word (sister). In any problem, big or small, mother used to ask me to pray. Believe it or not, my Beloved Jesus responded to me—most of the time immediately and sometimes a little later.

On my fourth birthday, my parents presented me with a pair of earrings. Even though in those days our financial condition was not so good, they gave me joy. I was so delighted with the new thing I ran hither and thither. In the evening my mother saw that one of my earrings was lost. She swept the whole house and even the yard. At last, my mother called out my pet name and asked me to pray. I earnestly asked Jesus to help me to find the ring.  i went out to the yard and I saw something shining near the well (which is in the yard). I called out to my mother, who came out immediately and was overjoyed to see the ring in my hand. So many people had passed that way and stamped upon it (as many of our neighbour come to fetch water from our well), but nobody had seen it or taken it. I thanked the Lord immediately.

Sr Lavina Anitha of the Holy Trinity AC

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“I woke up at night and found my father on top of me. My mother was mentally ill. She would try to fight him, but she was always beaten by my father. I ran away to Delhi with a boy I loved, but my father came and found me. He took me by train to Mumbai and sold me in Kamathipura (one of the largest red-light districts in Asia), for Rs 10, 000,” cries Shwetha, aged sixteen. (All names in these true stories have been changed).

“I was sold into it at when I was around eight years old. I didn’t understand much. Nowadays kids understand more, but I wasn’t like that. There was a woman who offered me a few chocolates and I followed her here. She brought me here and then sold me. We came in through the front and she left from the back. And then they said to me, ‘We have bought you for Rs 50,000; so, you have to stay with us.’ They threatened me, so I had to stay there. I stayed because there was no way I could escape. The first two days I cried uncontrollably, but where could I go? I didn’t know a way out. I had no choice, but to stay”, cries another girl, aged fifteen, also forced to stay and “work” in a brothel.  

A Cruel Trade

“They would beat me with a belt and poke me with cigarette buds to drown my voice,” cries another girl who was forced into prostitution at the tender age of ten.

“I was fourteen when I was forced into prostitution. My body was used and degraded by men seeking sex with young girls in return for money,” cries another survivor of commercial sexual exploitation of children. Hiding behind the facade of being ‘clients’ or ‘customers,’ they raped me, sometimes more than thrice a day, for seven long years. They would specifically demand girls like me. ‘Young and fresh’, that’s how we were marketed.”

A Crime to be a Female?

Is it their mistake that they are born as girls? Is it a crime to be a female? Some victims are throwaways; others are sold by their parents or forced into prostitution. Still others are street children. Prostitution of children is illegal under international law, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 34, states, “the State shall protect children from sexual exploitation and abuse, including prostitution and involvement in pornography.” The convention was first held in 1989 and has been ratified by 193 countries.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is an international human rights treaty which sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children. Article 20 concerning Protection of a child without family says, “The State is obliged to provide special protection for a child deprived of the family environment and to ensure that appropriate alternative family care or institutional placement is available in such cases”. When will this law become a reality?

Sr Lini Sheeja MSC

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Some years ago, while taking classes for us in Shillong, Fr Paul Puthenangady SDB told us that a parish should not be merely defined and demarcated by the number of Catholic families in it but by the number of poor people in it. Often, when we engage in the administration and pastoral care in a parish, we limit it to the number of Catholic families in the parish. In several places, especially in North India, we have large geographical areas under a parish but with very few Catholic families in it. But, if we think in a little more broadminded manner, we will realize how much more meaningful and fruitful our service will be.  It will be an authentic following of the example left behind by Jesus during his public ministry, when he reached out mostly to the poor and most marginalized people of his times, irrespective of their religion or ethnicity.

This new way of understanding a parish dawned on me as a big bolt from the blue, when I was assigned to a new mission some months ago to Don Bosco HRD Mission at Dhobasole, in one of the remotest areas in West Bengal. It is a mission among the Santhals in West Midnapore, bordering Bankura district, in the Jungle Mahal area, the original homeland of the Santhals. It is a mission pioneered by Fr Scaria Nedumattathil, who was also a pioneer in Prison Ministry, India. In the Dhobasole mission, there are no Catholics, but the mission is lively and vibrant like any other parish.

Fr Mathew George SDB

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