#550
THINKING ALOUD is allowed at CG25.
Ivo Coelho, Provincial of Mumbai, shares his thoughts on 4 issues taken up at
the chapter.
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Today is Sunday. Some thirty chapter members have gone to Florence, many others
have gone out on their own, a few of us are here at home quite nice,
really, to have some time for yourself after the hectic schedules of the
preceding days.
I have been going through the paper that is to be discussed tomorrow, the paper
presented by the first commission, on the topic of fraternal life as gift and
prophecy of communion. Here are some random thoughts, recollections, memories
that came to me from the last few weeks as I read the paper.
A topic that is being raised very frequently in this chapter is the quantitative
and qualitative consistency of our communities or in simpler language, the
size and quality of our communities. It looks like there are many
communities (‘presences’ is the technical word)
consisting of only two or at most three confreres. The point is noted in the
Vicar General’s Report on the state of the congregation, it is being
remarked upon by various members of the General Council, it has surfaced in
several of the papers presented by the commission, and there is even a
‘canonical study’ being circulated among the chapter members,
probably originating from the Secretary General’s office. I wonder how we
are going to be able to balance the need to have communities with an optimal
number of confreres, and the needs of the mission… I pointed this out to
Fr. Joaquim, and among the things he said was that Fr. Vecchi used to quote Don
Bosco, who sent at least eight confreres every time he began a new mission.
That point will have to be checked. But I am beginning to think that there is a
point behind all this insistence: can the processes of community life really
take place when there are only two or even three confreres? At the same time,
what do we do when the needs are so great? Maybe we need to reflect on this
issue as a province, maybe we need to take some bold decisions, such as taking
time to consolidate our communities rather than concentrating on
expansion… I would welcome any comments and suggestions!
Another topic that has been mentioned, and that in my opinion should be one of
the capital emphases of the current chapter, is the need for human and
affective maturity. In our own province, and in India in general, we have,
over the last 15 or 20 years, steadily and systematically built up viable
processes of intellectual formation. Perhaps human formation has not yet
received the same systematic attention, and it is time. We need to learn from
what is happening in other parts of the world, where failures in human and
affective maturity on the part of priests and religious are causing major
crises for dioceses and congregations. The financial liabilities easily mount
up to millions of dollars, the crisis of credibility, also the possibility of
false accusation and unscrupulous exploitation of the existing laws. But the
main problem is the unspeakable damage done to the victims by people who are
ministers, pastors, educators… Taking care of our feelings and our
sexuality is something that we ought to do as part of our vocation and as part
of what we owe to our youngsters and to our people, knowing that we are not
alone, knowing that we can count on the grace of God. What can we do concretely
as a province? In our last provincial chapter we have already decided to offer
the possibility of group therapy at all levels of our formation process, and we
have also decided to introduce a process of psychological testing at certain
levels. These decisions are being implemented, before I left Bombay we had a
meeting of several confreres of our province who are willing to offer their
services in this important area. What more can we do? We need to reflect on
this.
Yet another topic will probably be insisted upon is what might be called the
planning mentality. Planning, not in the first place because of efficiency,
but as a way of growing to be of one mind and of one heart. Planning together
is a question of getting together, being together, acknowledging our common
values or growing into them, sharing what is closest to our hearts, learning to
give and take, listening…. Even at a time when the whole community was
engaged in a single project such as a school and boarding, such planning was
essential. Now that more and more communities are becoming complex, the planning
mentality becomes an essential expression of our vocation, an essential
acknowledgement of the fact that the mission is given first and foremost to the
community. This is not to say that brilliant and creative individuals must be
suppressed or led back to the iron rails of conformism and mediocrity. This is
only to say that even such individuals would gain by sharing their projects
with the community, by having the backing of the community. All this means that
our leaders must learn to bring their confreres together, listen to them, give
them the necessary trust. It also means that confreres must acknowledge the
role of the Rector and of the community, accept the principle of
accountability, feedback, evaluation… I think we have already begun
taking steps in this direction, with the whole process of strategic planning
initiated by Anaclete (P. Economer of Mumbai) in response to the last
provincial chapter…
Our commission mentioned the importance of participation at community prayer,
but it was not really discussed: it was simply taken for granted as something
that is happening and should happen in every community. I wonder what our own
province feels about this. I am quite aware of the current of opinion that
considers the four C’s creeds, codes, cults and communities
as the superficial and external core of religion, and that gives pride of place
to religious experience. But I think that as long as we are human beings it
will be quite impossible to do without the community dimension of life. [A note
for the philosophically inclined: The community is a constitutive aspect of
being human, paraphrasing Gadamer (God bless his soul, he died a couple of days
ago at the ripe old age of 102 in Heidelberg).] It is quite impossible to do
without human expression. In fact, we never do without these dimensions in
other areas of our life, we would be aghast at even the suggestion that we eat
alone, or celebrate alone, or never give expression to our love or our
feelings… This is a strange theory which would get rid of all expression
when it comes to the spiritual and the religious, or at least downgrade
expression till only the stump remains. What I am trying to say is: we NEED
expression, we NEED the four C’s, creeds and codes and cults and
communities. Every human being needs these. Every religion needs these. But a
religion that claims that God has intervened in history, that he has spoken his
word, that he has entered history in a very personal way, goes even further: it
says that we cannot relativize the word and the expression and the community.
God has saved us in community: that is fundamental to Christianity. What I am
simply saying is: the rhythm of our daily community prayer is important, it is
vital to our growing and staying together. I think much would change in our
province, were we to be convinced of the central importance of this.
If this has been too heavy, please feel free to say STOP.
Ivo Coelho SDB
Provincial of Mumbai, India
(comments on the above may be sent directly to: ivosdb@hotmail.com)
