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Dear Leo
If you discover what had been banned by the Catholic Church re the writings
of Fr. Tony De Mello, please let me know.
Cornel DaCosta, London, UK.
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Goanet" <goanet@goanet.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2007 5:14 AM
Subject: [Goanet] Fr Tony Demello
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> This month's Goanet operations sponsored by Mrs. Daisy Faleiro
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> Dear Dr Brian,
>
> Thanks for your very kind words re. Fr Tony. on goanet.
>
> He has been my guru and I cherish his message very dearly. I have
> dedicated
> my website www.fullerlife.in to him. He has had a profound influence on
> my
> life. I do continue to live and spread his message.
>
> I often get confronted by well meaning Catholic friends who say '....but
> his
> writings were banned by the Church....'.
>
> You mention in your letter that though the Church initially banned it but
> later 'reinstated with caution..' I have been searching high and low for
> references to that. Do you have any references which say precisely that ?
>
> Thanks and rgds,
> Leo
> Live a Fuller Life.
> ***********************************
> From: "brian mendonca" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: [Goanet] Beyond Words: Language and Freedom in the Work of Fr
> Anthony De Mello, S J
> To: <goanet@goanet.org>
> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
> reply-type=original
>
> Beyond Words: Language and Freedom in the Work of Fr Anthony De Mello, S J
>
>
> Condemned by the present Pope Benedict XVI - then Cardinal Ratzinger of
> the
> Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - in 1998, the work of Fr
> Anthony
> De Mello SJ (1931-1987) has been treated with wariness. Swept off the
> Indian
> shelves following the edict by the Curia, yet reinstated with a note of
> caution later, 'Tony' the man, as he was called, continues to fascinate.
> And
> provoke. The reflections of Carlos Valles SJ on Tony are a case in point (
> Unencumbered by Baggage, 1987 & Diez Anos Despues, 1998).
>
> It appears, the muddy waters have yet to be still. Tony's often outspoken
> criticism of the Catholic church; his deep immersion into numerous
> faiths --
> Hasidic, Buddhist, Sufi, Hindu -- to name a few; and his self-empowering
> Sadhana retreats at Pune and Lonavla may not have made him 'a prophet for
> our times,' but it certainly gave lay people and religious a handle to
> heal
> their own often impoverished spiritual lives, and a path to peace --
> something which until then, for Catholics, was the exclusive office of the
> Church.
>
> Tony looked at spirituality as process rather than practice. He urged the
> faithful to see beyond rituals, to find renewal in the exuberance of life
> around them. To see Divinity, like Blake, in a grain of sand, a tree, or
> the
> moon. Through contemplation he made people spiritually self-reliant.
>
> Tony had his own spin on who Jesus was. And what 'God' stood for (some of
> his lines read like lyrics from Jim Morrison). He created stories to
> embody
> their lives and make them come alive in everyday situations which the
> common
> person understood.
>
> Was Tony a 'free-lance mystic' (TK Thomas)? What was his charisma which
> made
> his work in Pune, known in Rome, Spain and New York? Was he a godman or
> guru
> or Master? Why are people still tightlipped about his work and reluctant
> to
> acknowledge his contribution and his vast corpus of work, even when it is
> so
> liberating?
>
> The presentation explores some of these questions. Scion of Ignation
> spiritual traditions, Tony nevertheless blazed his own trail. More left
> than
> right, his appeal lay in his often ellisive Foucauldian language - to go
> beyond the literal and imply the unsaid. His dhvani approach to
> communicating with his readers, led seekers to realize their own freedoms.
> In an affirmation that 'words after speech reach into the silence' (TS
> Eliot).
>
> Perhaps there can be greater acceptance today of Tony's work, with the
> recent visits to Goa of the Black Pope and that of his eminence Cardinal
> Poupard in November 2006. The Final Statement at Pilar Theological
> College,
> Goa called for Catholic Cultural Centres 'to find common meeting grounds
> among peoples of various cultural, ethnic, religious and race groups' to
> heal the rifts of society.
>
> Healing and commonality - Tony's work nurtured both.
>
> -- Dr Brian Mendon?a,
> New Delhi,
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>
