NEW DELHI (UCAN) – Afghanistan is the best thing that happened to the Jesuits in South Asia, says Father Hector D’souza, who on May 31 completed a five-year term as provincial of the Jesuits in South Asia.

Father D’souza says the opening of a Jesuit mission in the war-torn country not only energized South Asian Jesuits, it also helped correct some misconceptions Afghan people had about Christianity and NGOs.

Closer to home, the priest, acknowledged missed opportunities regarding a proposal to merge the three Catholic Church rites — the Latin, Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara rites — under one Indian rite. In addition, he also believes that the Church in India needs ‘real persecution’ in order to purify itself so that it can fulfill its mission in the country.

Two days before he left office, the 59-year-old priest gave the following interview to UCA News:

UCA News: What are your sentiments as you leave the post as leader of the world’s largest Jesuit unit? Have South Asians taken leadership among the Jesuits?

Father Hector D’souza: I am happy and satisfied. But I won’t say we are leading the Jesuits. It is true we are a major group. We have given a new thrust to our congregation and the Church. We are little more than 4,000, maybe 4,015 in 18 provinces and two regions.

We have gone beyond our boundaries. For example, our people are helping in Guyana. Most probably, we will take up the Amazonian belt, a huge area in Latin America. Our men are now working in several countries in Africa, taking care of mostly formation houses. Jesuits from Hazaribag and Ranchi provinces (in eastern India) now work in Cambodia.

What else did the South Asian Jesuits do?

Our greatest venture was in Afghanistan. We went to that war-ravaged country in 2005. There are nine Jesuits from South Asia now working there. Two more will join them soon.

Afghanistan is the best thing that happened to the Jesuits in South Asia. The Afghan mission has energized our provinces and given them a new zeal. It has convinced our men that they can go to areas that they could never dream of reaching.

We went there because we are asked to help out in refugee work. The first Jesuit team there was not from India, but from Europe and it could not do much. So our general asked us to help.

Initially three men went there to study the situation. They found it very fluid. We realized we could not go there as an NGO because NGOs have a very bad reputation. Afghan people believe NGOs are interested only in making money out of their misery.

NGOs work under great strain. Armed men guard their people and buildings. They go out with military escorts. Initially we stayed with CRS (Catholic Relief Services), which also work under heavy security. We realized we cannot work that way and left them and started staying among the people.

Universities wanted us to teach English to their officers and teachers. We also help in teacher training institutions. We work in Kabul, Herat, Bamiyan and Chak Sharan. We have had tremendous success. Whenever I was in Afghanistan, government officers asked me to send more Jesuits.

We give many ongoing courses lasting five weeks. The universities allow us to give special classes during the three-month winter holidays. We charge students for the course, but if they are regular, we give back the money at the end of the course. Our classes are packed.

People have realized that we do an honest job and that we are with them. We spend a lot of time listening to them. Our strength is also measured by how the women relate to us. Afghanistan society does not allow women to move around freely. They have to wear burqa (a head-to-toe garment worn by Muslim women that includes a mesh facial covering). However, mothers come to our houses, leave their children and go. They know only men stay in our house, but still they trust us. We have won over people’s good will.

We have also changed people’s attitude toward Christianity. Almost all foreigners in Afghanistan are Christians — army and U.N. officials. People there have different notions about our religion. But they tell us that they see another type of Christians in us. They are convinced that we are for them and we work for the poor. We have given a new vision of Christianity in Afghanistan.

We have also managed to change the Afghan people’s attitude toward NGOs. We brought several top-level government officials to India and helped them understand how real NGOs work. The CRS paid for their travel and we took care of their stay in India. The Afghan government has changed many laws about NGOs after those visits.

How did you manage to win over people?

Afghans love Indians. They tell us that Indians are their people. Last year I took six trips to the Missionaries of Charity house in Kabul. Every time the taxi drivers refused to take money after they found out that I was from India. I had to force them to accept the money. India has built roads and runs the public transport and a major hospital in Kabul. Except for the Taliban, everyone appreciates Indians. So we had an easy entry point as Indians.

All of us, even our senior men, have learned Dari, the local language. We have put our heart and soul into it. That also made a big difference.

Have you not faced any problems?

So far nobody has been touched. The places where we work are not under Taliban influence. The government officials do not want us to work in Kandahar and other Taliban areas.

What are the weaknesses of the South Asian Jesuits?

Our main weakness is that we do not publicize what we do. We are shy of publicity. We do many beautiful things but seldom tell people about them.

Some blame Jesuits for introducing casteism and inter-rite problems in the Church here.

If people say we created the caste problem, they are wrong. Caste is an Indian problem. The early missioners wanted the best way to convert people. So some went with the high-caste people while others worked among the low-caste. They did so after they realized they could not beat the system. So they went along with the system.
Sitting back now we cannot judge what people did more than centuries ago.

About the rite problem, when the Jesuits came to Kerala, Syrian Christians already existed there. The Latin-rite was imposed on them partly because of the Portuguese (colonial) hegemony. It was the white Catholic Church that dominated then. Jesuits were not the only people who came with the colonial rulers. Dominicans, Franciscans and others were also part of the system. What happened then was unfortunate.

 

Can’t the Jesuits take the lead to resolve the problem?

We did, but the Church missed a great opportunity. We asked if the three rites, Latin, Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara, could come together and have one rite, an Indian rite. At the Church in India Seminar in 1969, one of our men, (late Father M.M. Balaguer) and Bishop Patrick D’souza, who was then a priest, proposed an Indian rite. It was a grand assembly of people from India’s all three rites. Rite is after all about worship and Sacrament.

Father Balaguer proposed an Indian rite taking into account India’s unique cultural and social situations. We took the initiative, but nobody wanted it because everyone wanted power, money and glory. These are three temptations, and we succumbed to them. At the 1969 seminar, nobody wanted a common rite because it would have meant fewer dioceses and bishops. All of us have sinned and should beat our breasts and ask the Lord for mercy.

Let us not blame bishops or dioceses or anyone else. It was a collective failure. Vatican II was alive then and we had the freedom to innovate. Vatican II was the most progressive development in the Church. The Vatican was open to new ideas and movements at that time. If we had agreed on the Indian rite, the Vatican would have approved it after asking a few questions. Now, we have lost the chance.

Caste is a problem of the larger Indian society and we cannot resolve it.

What does the Church need now?

What we need now is real persecution. Persecution can purify us of our lethargy, inactiveness and failure to live the Gospel. If purification does not come within the Church, God will use other means to purify us.

Wherever the Church faced persecution, it has become very strong. For example, the Church in Gujarat (western India). It has become alive and vibrant after Hindu radicals targeted it a decade ago. The Church in India was very vibrant when the (pro-Hindu) Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian people’s party) ruled India (1999-2004). People were out on the streets for their rights. Similar things happened after the attacks on Christians in 2008.

However, the violence we have experienced are only pinpricks. Real persecution will come only when our structures are affected.