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Dilip was browsing the web one day when he came across some nude pictures of women. He liked what he saw. And wanted to see more of them. He typed in “nude” on Google, and a whole series of nude pictures appeared. He typed in “sex” and graphic pictures of sexual activity appeared. The next day, when he opened his computer to do some work, sexual imagery began to pop up now and then, with links to porn sites. He began to access them. Gradually sexual imagery and activity began to fill his mind. Not satisfied with what was freely available, he began to spend money to access more and more hard-core stuff online. He was now spending an average 4-6 hours a day accessing porn… All this affected his work and his daily life and relationships. He cut out many other pleasurable activities he was interested in earlier, such as engaging in sports, spending time with friends, visiting places. He began to feel tired and exhausted. The joy and peace he used to experience began to disappear. He felt he needed to stay away from the porn sites, but could not. Accessing them became a compulsion. He began to hate himself for his inability to stay away from porn. He also began sinking into depression.

There is an explosion of Internet use today. A good deal of the Internet usage is driven by online pornographic pursuits. A sizable chunk of information available on the Internet is related to sexually explicit material. Sexually oriented chat rooms draw a large number of Internet users. Seminarians,  priests and religious are also part of the growing number of online pornography addicts. Often these forays into pornographic material begin as attempts to satisfy sexual curiosity, but develop into compulsions.

FR JOSE PARAPPULLY SDB

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I am not sure if my experience is worth sharing. I do it with the hope that it may help some people who may have gone through the same or similar experiences. Those who have not gone through such tough and shameful passages may not understand their pull or their destructive impact. I shall write it down just as I remember it.

When I joined religious life, I had only one desire—to be a good sister. I enjoyed my novitiate days and I was waiting for the day to commit myself to the Lord in service of his people. I was happy to be a religious.

After my first vows I was assigned to a community far from where I had joined. I did various types of work—volunteering in a hospital nearby and helping our community with routines jobs. I felt happy working with patients, especially children. So, too, it was a joy doing all I could for my community. I was young and full of enthusiasm.

Loneliness Sets In—and then…

One thing I missed was community support. Each one was busy with her work. We did not seem to care for one another. I started feeling lonely. As for the work, it all became dull routine after some time.

That was the time I started watching pornography. At the beginning, I watched just out of curiosity. I had been exposed to this type of pictures and videos when I was in the X standard, but had not picked up this habit. But now I found myself watching porn more and more. In fact, I feel ashamed to say, very soon I was watching porn every day.

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As I said in the Editorial, the push came from Kevin Sullivan’s unexpected article on addiction to pornography. Kevin, a wonderfully loving husband, father and grandfather—as well as a smart and experienced lawyer—is deeply disturbed by the impact of this phenomenon on marriages, youth, the treatment of women, and commitments in general. As I started looking around for people who can contribute relevant material for our readers, I also noticed that Indian press has been looking at this issue.

During walks, I stop at bookshops and newsstands. I check what seems to be the main topics engaging our most widely read magazines. Most of the cover stories about politics and politicians, or about business and money. Among the magazines laid out on the rack, I was surprised to see these two cover stories: Outlook, the Delhi-based news weekly, had “Looking at Porn” as the cover theme of their August 16, 2021 issue. The Week, the popular magazine published by the Malayala Manorama group, had on its September 5, 2021 cover: “Porn During the Pandemic: India becomes the world’s top consumer of adult content. And our children become even more vulnerable.” Indians accessed pornography on a large scale during the lockdown. This happened in other countries, too. But India topped the increase.

Shouldn’t we be at least as concerned about our children, the safety of women, and the stability of marriages, as these secular magazines seem to be?

Fr Joe Mannath SDB

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Like many others, I too want to read more books. I thought about how this wish could be fulfilled without having money to procure the books I want to read.. A mere desire to read is not enough. Most people are uncertain about what to read and do not know how to follow up their particular interests. A good start is necessary.  I used to read books, but not many. I used to follow the free resources (videos, articles, book recommendations) posted on wordonfire.org, a catholic website founded by Bishop Robert Barron, the Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles. It is through this website I virtually met Brandon Vogt, the content director of Wordonfire Catholic Ministries.

HITTING A JACKPOT

I researched a bit to know more about the person of Brandon Vogt. I was amazed at the findings. I wondered how a busy man like Brandon could put his hands on many things – reading, authoring books, writing blogs, parenting, managing multiple websites and podcasts. If you want something to be done, ask a busy man. If you wish to be inspired, seek wisdom from those who inspire.

Fr Aneesh Chacko SDB

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I have been living in St. Charles Home for Senior Citizens, Kamba Village, Kalyan, Maharashtra, for five years now. Not only have I aged since then, but I have had a ringside view of the ageing process in the inmates here. Eleven of them have passed away during this period, most of them going gently into the night. Death, as a result, has become less frightening for us all. We have shared the tears and the grief of those left behind, when their spouses passed away. We have also through sheer closeness and proximity been an emotional support to those who were faced with the death of their near and dear ones. We live like a family here, supporting and caring for each other.

Some of those who came walking upright, laughing and talking have slowly walked into a twilight existence of non-recognition, disability and loss of memory. Others keep their minds active by following cricket, the daily news and even venture political opinions.

Janina Gomes

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I faced death recently. I gave away all my possessions. Corona hit me hard, and seemed to win. Today, I am so grateful to be alive. I had never appreciated the preciousness of life as I do today.

I am thirty-three years old. I am a tribal young man from Odisha. Today, I am a social worker living in Delhi. I live alone in an apartment. As the second wave of the pandemic hit the nation, I was also one among the thousands who were affected by the Corona virus. Today, as I speak about my experience, I feel so grateful to be alive.

I started developing symptoms in the first week of April 2021. I went to a government dispensary near my office.  They did an RTPCR. The results were getting  delayed so much that I decided to get a Rapid Antigen Test. I tested positive. The people at the dispensary asked me and some other patients to wait in a corner. There were no chairs and I was tired of standing, so I just sat on the floor. As time passed, I started feeling weak but there was no response from the authorities

Staying at a rented place, I did not tell anyone about my condition. I was afraid I would be asked to vacate the room. Managing alone was really tough. I was dead tired, with a fever of 102 to 103 degrees. In this condition I could not ask anyone to come over.

Bijay Kumar Hembram

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MESSAGE OF POPE FRANCIS FOR THE 2021 WORLD DAY OF VOCATIONS (25 April 2021)

[The following text is taken verbatim from the Pope’s message. The complete document is found on the Net.]

Through his ordinary life, he [St Joseph] accomplished something extraordinary in the eyes of God.

God looks at the heart (cf.1 Samuel 16:7), and in Saint Joseph he recognized the heart of a father, able to give and generate life in the midst of daily routines. Vocations have this same goal: to beget and renew lives every day. The Lord desires to shape the hearts of fathers and mothers: hearts that are open, capable of great initiatives, generous in self-giving, compassionate in comforting anxieties and steadfast in strengthening hopes. The priesthood and the consecrated life greatly need these qualities nowadays, in times marked by fragility but also by the sufferings due to the pandemic…

Saint Joseph suggests to us three key words for each individual’s vocation. The first is dream. Everyone dreams of finding fulfilment in life. We rightly nurture great hopes, lofty aspirations that ephemeral goals – like success, money and entertainment – cannot satisfy. If we were to ask people to express in one word their life’s dream, … the answer [would be]: “to be loved.” It is love that gives meaning to life… Indeed, we only have life if we give it; we truly possess it only if we generously give it away. Saint Joseph has much to tell us in this regard, because, through the dreams that God inspired in him, he made of his life a gift.

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Here are inspiring human beings of today from different backgrounds who truly see and treat everyone as their own. Their lives show us that the ideals presented in FRATELLI TUTTI can really be lived out in practice.

 Everybody is Mine!

I met Balwant Singh Dalwani years ago in Kochi, at the World Conference on Religion. The conference had participants from various religions. I have forgotten most of the learned papers presented there, but not a simple prayer uttered by this good man.

Every morning, people were to free to pray in their own way—which meant that each religious group met separately for their prayers. Thus, for instance, the Catholics had Holy Mass in a room, the Buddhists met to have their prayers, etc. Dalwani, instead, liked to pray with a different group every morning. And he took part respectfully.

One day, the organizer invited Dalwani to come to the stage and say a prayer. We did not understand what he said; I suppose it must have been in Punjabi. When it was translated, I found it one of the most touching prayers I had ever heard. That prayer—and the man saying it—taught me much.

What he said was this:

“When I have found Thee,

There is no ‘mine’ and ‘not mine’;

Everybody is mine.”

A few Sisters from Maharashtra who knew Mr Dalwani told us, “He not only says this in prayer. That is how he lives.”

Mr Dalwani belonged to the prestigious Indian Foreign Service (IFS). He retired early and came back to India—not to join politics or seek government posts, but to serve the needy. He dedicated himself to looking after leprosy patients in rural Maharashtra. He did not see those patients, who belonged to a different state, and whose condition made them ‘untouchable’ for most people, as ‘not his.’ No, “everybody is mine.”

………

FR JOE MANNATH SDB

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A famous statesman recently spoke of the human beings he admires most. He mentioned Pope Francis as “a genuinely good man.”

Pope Francis is not only the head of the Catholic Church. Why is he one of the most admired and influential world leaders?

The reason is simple. “We like to listen to this Pope,” said The Washington Post (by no means a Catholic newspaper) “because he talks like Jesus, acts like Jesus, and is like Jesus.”

As a bishop and cardinal, he lived in a slum among the poor, cooking for himself and another prelate. He used public transport for travel. When, at his election as Pope, journalists went to that slum in Argentina, they asked the local people, “Do you have a photo of the bishop?” “Yes,” most of them replied in delight. They would go into their poor house, and come out with a photo—not OF the bishop, but WITH the bishop. He was one of them, not someone who lived in a palace, with his office distributing framed photos to be kept in convent parlours.

One of his first trips as Pope was to the island of Lampedusa, the spot where African refugees, fleeing poverty and violence, tried to enter Europe. Many had perished in the Mediterranean Sea.

He lives in a simple room in the Vatican Guest House, not in the Apostolic Palace, where his predecessors had their quarters.

On Maundy Thursday, years ago, he shocked and inspired the world by washing the feet of refugees of different races, including some who were not Catholics.

Five years ago, he wrote Laudato Si, calling on all people of good will to care for the earth, our common home.

He also insists on certain priorities which make him the hated target of a several super-rich people and some church leaders who do not like his insistence on the church being poor and of the poor. His life and words challenge their comfortable life-style. He says what the world needs: “An economy centred around human beings, and not around profit.” Which profit-worshipping magnate would like to hear that?

…….

Fr Joe Mannath SDB

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We can all learn from—and be challenged by—by the vision and loving commitment of a highly qualified priest-professor who heart reaches out to the poorest. I have seen how the eyes of the poor, especially of children, light up when they see Fr Mathew. A model and a challenge.—Editor

What we see depends on where we stand. This a truism coming from our everyday experience. It can be understood both literally and figuratively. Literally, our physical sight is limited by the space that we occupy. We can see only what is around us. We cannot see, for example, what lies beyond the horizon. Figuratively, where we stand refers to what we stand for, ahat defines our personality and gives meaning to our existence. It is about our priorities, our value systems and our principles. So, our lives will be shaped definitely for the better or for the worse by where we stand and what we stand for.
If we stand in an airport terminal or a luxury shopping mall, then we will see the glittering side of the advancement brought about by science and technology – everything about it is so flashy and spectacular. There is a touch of class in the building, the furniture and the lay out. The rich top layer of humanity can be found there, as they go in and out of such places. If we stand in a slum surrounded by shanties infested with rats and dirt and slime, and with human beings swarming the area like maggots, we see another aspect of humanity and existence. Both these types of places that I have mentioned can influence our perspective and impact our ministry.
During the past decade—by a quirk of circumstances or Divine Providence, depending on one’s point of view—I have been doing ministry in places where I was able to encounter human misery in all its inhuman dimensions. Though it liked a quirk of circumstances, I believe it was the definitive plan of God that took me to such places and people. If we live for the Lord, we will find ourselves in the right at the right time. I am sure this is something that many people can vouch for from their experience. Besides my assigned responsibilities in the community, I was able to find time to reach out to the neighbourhood. I would like to share with you some of my profoundly heart-wrenching experiences in working with people in a garbage dump land-fill and a slum along a drainage canal.

………

Fr Mathew George SDB

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