Catholic Social Intelgentsia

                       

 Jesus who walked on this earth 2000 years ago was an ambassador of truth. He spoke of a kingdom which is built on and ruled by love and justice. He used the spoken word and the contextualized examples and imageries as part of his effective communication. Revolutionary Jesus was ever ready to challenge the unjust structures and the false and dehumanizing practices. I believe no one ever in the history of humanity has befriended people as him. Obviously it cost him his life.

                     We Christians have a mandate to walk the path of Christ and to be a counter cultural and a contrast community. We, as religious have even greater responsibility, ‘to read the signs of the time and respond to them creatively’ (GS 4). Pope Francis, in his apostolic Exhortation recalling the Latin American theologians reminds us that ‘it’s not enough to say that we have been like this (EG 33), rather we need to move out of our churches, without waiting passively inside.’(EG 12)

            Freedom of Expression is one of the greatest gifts citizens of any nation can ever have and we Indians are privileged to be a secular democracy. Communication media plays a vital role in the Indian Society and politics today. One cannot deny the role of media in the ever increasing religious intolerance in the country. It’s the opinion of many that the communication media in India of late, has been creating, projecting and selling the reality dictated by the ruling and the elite section of the society. It’s unfortunate that a large section of the country’s population has been receiving only the projected reality passively, without deeper analysis.

            The print and the digital media in some sense, is responsible in dividing people and posing a great threat to secular democracy. There is a growing need today to befriend people by continually unveiling truth from untruth and leading people from darkness to light. Enhancing mutual dialogue based on deeper understanding of each other is essential today and church has a great role to play in this regard. The document ‘Redemptoris Missio’ clearly states that promoting dialogue is not only for peaceful co-living rather it’s the fundamental dimension of church’s mission today.

                   

   In a world ruled by communication media, what is the role of religious? The task, I believe is straight forward; to counter the falsely created reality that divides people and to work for truth, for truth shall set everyone free to live as one human community.

            Thus, Can we think of ‘Catholic Social Intelgentsia’ to combat the intolerant storm and to befriend people? What is Catholic Social Intelgentsia? This is a group of thinkers and activists who are well informed about the current affairs and in general has a say in these matters given to their background. For eg: Fr Cedric Prakash, Fr Rudi Heredia, Fr Ambrose Pinto etc. The team also needs a group of secular personalities like Teesta Setalvad, Medha Patkar, Sunitha Krishnan, John Dayal, Ram Puniyani, Anto Akkara, Kancha Illiah etc who are actively working for a cause. I would call the members of this team as ‘Counter Cultural Prophets’ This combination of secular and religious thinkers, need to be further assisted by a small group of technicians and designers.

            The team needs to carefully and constantly keep watch over various false propaganda that is being promoted in the print and digital media and counter it with factual claims of truth and reality. The upmost task of this team would be to expose the ‘Other  Side of the Hype’. Digital media including various websites including the social media like FB and Twitter needs to be constantly monitored and corrected. At the same time the constructive communication through art, music and other forms of aesthetics, should be promoted continually. The resources available with the younger band of religious could be a great help in this regard. Catholic Social Intelgentsia must keep preparing second and third generation of counter cultural prophets.

                      Pope Francis, in his apostolic Exhortation speaks of a dynamic church; ‘ I would prefer a church which is bruised, hurt and dirty because it ha been out on the streets’. The Church’s document on Justice (Justicia in Mundo), invites the church and the clergy to be a voice of many who are voiceless and silenced.

                     Signs of the times are placing a clear invitation before us religious to work for the Kingdom of God and Catholic Social Intelgentsia would be an effective tool in befriending people and forming a humane society. I wish ‘Catholic social Intelgentsia’, becomes a reality.