Maravi

Life is unfair

Life is unfair
By The Post
Tue 04 Oct. 2011, 15:00 CAT

We ask our priests to respect themselves and be exemplary in their daily lives. We ask this of them because they cannot call others to virtues which they themselves do not make an effort to practice. It is said that justice begins at home and our priests themselves must be the first to give witness.

We say this in the light of the clearly embarrassing position taken by Fr Charles Chilinda, the assistant Parish priest at St Ignatius Catholic Church in Lusaka. It is well known in the church circles that Fr Chilinda has been a sympathiser of the MMD and of Rupiah Banda. He supported them when they were in power and today he is trying to protect them from prosecution when they are out of power. This is understandable.

But it is dishonesty on Fr Chilinda's part to try and conceal the base from which he is speaking. He is not speaking as an impartial leader of a Catholic congregation but as a sympathiser of Rupiah and the MMD. Fr Chilinda should be ashamed that of all the Catholic congregations, St Ignatius has produced the highest number of corrupt elements, people who have stolen from the government, from the poor.

Probably, Fr Chilinda doesn't know what it means to be poor because he is a parish priest of a congregation that is affluent, that doesn't know what it means to be poor. So he is defending the privileges, the interests of his affluent congregation.

But this is contrary to biblical teachings that require him to "speak up for people who cannot speak for themselves. Protect the rights of all who are helpless. Speak for them and be a righteous judge. Protect the rights of the poor and needy" (Proverbs 31:8-9).

We are told in Proverbs 18:5 that "It is not right to favour the guilty and keep the innocent from receiving justice". We are also told that "It is wrong for a judge to be prejudiced. If he pronounces a guilty person innocent, he will be cursed and hated by everyone. Judges who punish the guilty, however, will be prosperous and enjoy a
good reputation" (Proverbs 24:24-25).

As a Catholic priest, Fr Chilinda should know very well that
confession, remorse and indeed truth is the condition for forgiveness
not only between us and God, but also between people.

Let us humbly accept our wrongdoings and ask for forgiveness for the times we may have offended others. The pursuit of justice must not only be a
fundamental norm of the state but also of the Church. The rights of
all individuals to a decent life must be protected and fostered,
together with the public duties binding all citizens.

The rule of law requires that all citizens should be equal before the law. If they commit crimes, the law should treat them the same way. Fr Chilinda is
troubled by the prospect of Rupiah being prosecuted for corruption and
abuse of power. But he is not equally troubled by the presence of so
many poor people in our prisons, many who have been driven to crime by
poverty, marginalisation and neglect.

This doesn't seem to bother him.
He doesn't speak for them. But he has always spoken for the powerful
and corrupt MMD leaders and their league. What type of a priest is
this? The law is an instrument of God's self-communication; it guides
human beings to share in divine life through love. But Fr Chilinda
wants special laws for his privileged citizens who happen to be
presidents.

Fr Chilinda is asking Michael Sata and the Zambian people to forgive
Rupiah without telling them what crimes or wrongs Rupiah has
committed. If Rupiah has done nothing wrong, has committed no crimes
against our people, then what is there to forgive? If Rupiah is not
guilty, what is there to forgive? Forgiveness is a result of truth,
justice and reconciliation. It is an act of love.

Anyway, we have a problem with this type of preaching that Fr Chilinda is championing. We know that all religions preach love as their core teaching; yet we find people committing crimes that go against this love for one another. We also find people who are apparently very religious and faithful to their religious practices and at the same time very selfish. We find among them those who do not seem to have any qualms of conscience about their selfish behaviours like taking bribes, corruption and so on and so forth.

When religion degenerates into religiosity either at the individual or at the organisation level, religious practices and structures tend to replace religious
values. Religion, then, instead of becoming a liberative, becomes a means of corruption, abuse, exploitation, or as Karl Max would say, opium, both of individuals and of religious groups.

We need to focus on the core values that are the common heritage of
all religions. These values, according to spiritual masters, are love,
wisdom and inner freedom. We need to go back to the core values of
which the rituals and practices are to be but the external
expressions. The rituals and practices have validity only in so far as
they help the followers of any religion to imbibe and put into
practice these values.

Why is it that religion that is supposed to preach honesty, truth and
justice becomes a source of corruption and abuse?

We can see from Fr Chilinda's behaviour that once the moral values
have been set aside, there is no limit to which one will not go to
obtain one's selfish ends. Dishonesty and duplicity gain
respectability for they are committed in the name of religion for the
new rule will be that "the end justifies the means".

There is always an axe to grind in following this principle. One can get so blinded by selfish motives that one can be completely ignorant of the motives of
one's own actions. The only unnecessary test to determine if a belief or an act is truly religious is simply to ask the question: Does it foster the integral growth of all concerned and promote brotherhood among people? Any belief or religious act that contradicts this universal value is wrong even if one can find justification for it even in the scriptures.

Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of
the world fully appear to us as a constituent dimension of preaching
the gospel. There is need for us to do what needs to be done.
Prosecuting a wrongdoer is not wrong, is not a sign of unforgiveness.

People have to pay penance for their wrongs or crimes. But we all know
that life is often unfair. The world in which we live is not always
just. The parable of the African boy tells it all. Walking along the
bank of a river one day, he was distracted by the cry of a crocodile
in distress. It told the boy how it had come out in search of food for
its little ones and was caught in the hunter's net.

It did not mind dying, it said, but for the sake of the hungry young ones, it asked the boy to set it free. The hesitant boy was reassured by the animal
that it would never harm a boy that came to its rescue. Just as the boy released the animal from the last string of the net, it caught the boy between its jaws. The boy accused the crocodile of perfidy. It replied that, when hungry, crocodiles eat whatever they can get hold of and that the boy was a fool to believe it. "This, my dear boy, is life," concluded the animal.

The crocodile asked the boy to check with the crow that was sitting on a tree nearby if it was unjust. The crow agreed with the crocodile saying that it had on a tree a nest with two young ones which a snake swallowed, just two days ago. All the crow's pleas not to harm the young ones did not stop the snake. That, the crow said, was the world!

It was a donkey that the boy consulted next at the suggestion of the crocodile. The donkey told the boy how it had worked for its master faithfully for ten years and, now that it was too old to work, the master had just turned it out to feed on its scraps of paper and scarce grass. That was the law of the world, concluded the donkey. Then came a fox whom the crocodile was happy to let the boy consult.

His first condition before any discussion was that no dialogue was fair under duress and so the crocodile had to release its hold on the boy's leg. The fox added that if at all the boy showed the slightest sign of running away, the crocodile could knock him down with its powerful tail. As soon as the crocodile released the boy's leg, the fox shouted to the boy to run for his life. To the surprised crocodile, the fox said, "This is life, my dear, as you told the boy."
Let's do what needs to be done. This is the secret of holiness.

Forgiveness is easy when the violators see the pain they have caused us and sincerely apologise for their wrongdoing. The trouble is that they may not always apologise. Some people just don't realise how much pain they cause us. Some are too proud to apologise. They feel that if they do, they diminish in our estimation, forgetting the truth that admitting a mistake is a sign of greatness.

Today the Church has come to recognise that there are unjust structures that prevent individuals from living with the dignity of God's children. In fact, these unjust structures are the cause of the greatest threats to love. Action on behalf of justice and participation on the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the gospel.

For, after all, these structures challenge and thwart love on which "depend all
the law and the prophets" (Mt 22:40). There can be no preaching the
Word of God without the preaching of justice. The test of one's love
is the extent to which one is ready to go to reform structural
imbalances to give justice to the poor.

This is what we call Fr Chilinda to. Let him defend the interests of the poor by ensuring that those who have robbed them are made to pay back through prosecutions if they are not willing to do so voluntarily. Fr Chilinda should place the interests of the poor above the respect of a former president who
has abused his office and his people.

Labels: CATHOLIC CHURCH, MMD

posted by MrK @ 6:23 PM