Straight bat: when the hold of faith wanes

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: If politicians stopped making a beeline to bishops during elections with TV crew in tow, would prelates quietly carry on with their pastoral duties and responsibilities? Yes and No, because this practice can’t be wished away as long as politicians stand for elections and the faithful have votes to cast.

The media could not have ignored CPM State secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan’s “courtesy call” on Thrissur Archbishop Andrews Thazhath at the Bishop’s House in Thrissur on Wednesday, accompanied by party’s Kunnamkulam candidate A.C. Moideen. The spectacle is the message.

Such visits may help prevent bishops from issuing poll-eve subtly nuanced pastoral letters, which can be interpreted differently by different people. But the laity get the real message, which mostly is a call to back the pro-Congress front or the Kerala Congress.

In the 1950s, 60s and 70s the sole party acceptable to the church was Congress. The Marxists were taboo for Catholics. But soon regional parties surfaced, such as different Kerala Congress parties. Black and white binary positions changed. Clear-cut political positions of priests or bishops also changed. The CPM softened on its hawkish positions so much so that in every parish, the community was ranged between UDF and LDF.

But there have been individual attempts by bishops to favour candidates. On March 16, 2009, Archbishop Daniel Acharuparambil, head of the Latin Catholic Church, sent a panel of four Latin Catholics, with Mr. Hibi Eden’s name prominently, to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, in an embarrassing intervention.

On the eve of the assembly elections in 2011, senior priests in the archdiocese of Thrissur met Congress leaders, demanding that UDF field Catholic candidates from the district's five constituencies -- Kodakara, Thrissur, Ollur, Manaloor and Kunnamkulam.

The relationship between the Church and the Left has been blow hot, blow cold. The late CPM ideologue E.M.S. Namboodiripad publicly demanded that Kerala Congress (Joseph) leader P.J. Joseph disown the bishops before joining the Left Democratic Front in Kerala in the 1980s.

Former Finance minister K M Mani was perhaps the first politician, that too in the Christian-dominated Pala, to win an election despite Bishop Sebastian Vayalil taking him for an upstart. Once Mr Mani proved he could win without the bishop’s backing, the latter fell in line.

The late K Karunakaran was such an uncanny politician that he used bishops to his advantage. Says commentator D Babu Paul: “Karunakaran could have nipped in the bud the Nilackal issue (a crucifix surfacing on a plot near Sabaimala) but he let it hot up so he could emerge as the saviour of Hindus”.

Fr Paul Thelakat, the chief editor of Light of Truth, pints out the directive of  the Second Vatican Council, which taught to interfere in politics when human rights and social well being are concerned and restrain from partisan politics.

The Church should not be “identified in any way with the political community nor bound to any political system. She is at once a sign and a safeguard of the transcendent character of the human person”. Which clearly spells out that the clergy may better entrust mundane politics to the elected and the electors.