Book
Review
Anyone
who is familiar with the Catholic Church will agree that a Reformation is long
overdue in it. Too many things are going wrong in it. It is not anything like what
Jesus would approve of. The book, Karthavinte Namathil (In the Lord’s
Name), is written by a Catholic nun who is facing defrocking because
she has questioned too many of the Church’s sins of commission and omission.
The
author’s chief complaint is that the nuns are dominated by the priests. Some of
them (too many of them, if this book is to be believed) are sexually exploited
by the priests too. A nun’s life turns out to be service of the priests in
various ways instead of service of the Lord and His people. The author argues
for liberation of the nuns from the clutches of priests. She goes a step ahead
and demands more personal liberty for the nuns.
I
am quite familiar with a lot of priests and nuns and the religious life itself.
I was part of the religious system for ten years. In my experience and
observation sexual deviations are exceptions rather than rules in the system. I
agree that the exceptions seem to be becoming too frequent to be exceptions
anymore. Even if they are exceptions, they are serious aberrations and the
Church ought to take effective actions against the perpetrators of such
offences.
More
often than not, the Church goes out of the way to protect the offenders and
condemn the victims. For the Church, its public image seems to matter more than
the sanctity of the institution. The author does have a very valid point here.
But
when it comes to her views on personal liberty, we enter a slippery ground.
Ascetic life has many restrictions. Otherwise it wouldn’t be asceticism. All
the Catholic priests and nuns are pledged to chastity and obedience. Most of
them also take the vow of poverty. Quite many personal desires have to be
sacrificed if one wishes to be a priest or a nun.
Sister
Lucy, the author, seems to bat for more personal liberty than the system can
permit. She published her writings against her superior’s orders. She attended
public functions and gave interviews to the media, again disregarding the
orders of her congregation. She bought a car, yet another instance of
disobedience as well as breach of the vow of poverty.
Of
course, the nun has certain valid reasons to offer in her defence. A lot of
priests and nuns do all these things. She has been taken to task because her
actions hurt the Church, rather the priests, unlike those of her counterparts. Many
theologians, brilliant ones too, like Hans Kung, went against the Church’s
official teachings occasionally. The Church didn’t forgive them at all. The
Church doesn’t forgive easily offences against its well-guarded creeds and
dogmas.
I
agree with Sister Lucy that the Church should undergo what it calls aggiornamento,
making itself more relevant to the times. Many rules and practices which were
formulated centuries ago cannot be valid in today’s world. The world has
changed so much in the last few decades that the Church’s attitudes towards a
nun owning a car, for instance, need be re-examined. Yet if a nun chooses to
disregard too many rules, however irrelevant they may be, she doesn’t deserve
to be in the system.
Sister
Lucy says that she wants to reform the system staying inside. That’s an
impossible mission especially when the system is as humungous as the Catholic
Church. Otherwise the reformer should possess the vision of a Francis of Assisi
or a Clare of Assisi. Sister Lucy belongs to a congregation founded in the
names of these two saints. But she lacks their spirit.
Sister
Lucy emerges in the book as a very ordinary person who wants to have the best
of both the worlds: the religious life and the secular one. She longs to enjoy
the security of the convent without having to give up too many comforts of the
outside world. This is the reason why her autobiography shies away from any
depth. She has little to offer to the reader except some superficial criticism
of the Church (though I will never deny that the criticism is valid and
deserves much attention) and a passionate defence of herself.
Though
it’s an autobiography, the book is written by M K Ramadas, a journalist. The
writing is good and makes for interesting reading. I read it in one go, just a
few hours. The last 59 pages of the 229-page book constitute an appendix which presents
all the letters that changed hands between the author and her superiors. They
are of little use to a lay reader.
I
gave 3 stars to this book in my Amazon review. I think I have made the reasons
clear enough. My autobiography, Autumn
Shadows, is available at Amazon as an e-book. The print version will be
available soon. A few chapters of the book are about my tryst with the Catholic
religious life.
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