Questions before the Church: the wealth of the religious
By Augusto Pinto
pinto...@gmail.com or ypinto...@yahoo.co.in
Dr. Teotonio De Souza's article "The Political Economy of the
Church" -- see http://bit.ly/fyG7q, and Herald 23-05-2009 --
is a trenchant critique of the Church in Goa. De Souza
suggests that the vast amount of property and money in the
hands of the Church should be better handled by making the
administration of this institution more broad-based and
democratic.
But there are other issues, perhaps equally important which
have been raised. He examines for instance, the relationship
between the State and the religious institutions -- including
Hindu temples -- in Goa and suggests they should be
accountable to the past as well as to the future.
The laws governing such institutions like the Lei
de Confrarias and Lei de Mazanias were made in
Portuguese times and still are in force. De Souza
suggests that there is need for reflection and
debate on these by our citizens, before someone
clumsily alters them without thinking about the
resulting chaos that may ensue.
That Dr. De Souza was critical of the Church in the past too
is evident from the references in his article. One suspects
the Church chose not to respond then and preferred to ride
out the storm.
Perhaps this method of sitting out criticism was possible
earlier when one could control the media directly or
indirectly. But this is a dubious strategy in the age of
electronic communication, where it does not take anyone to do
more than a copy-paste operation to repeat any charges one
chooses ad nauseum on a host of blog sites and mailing lists.
After a while these cannot be ignored by the more
conventional media like newspapers and television.
Hence the issues raised by Dr. De Souza should be
treated seriously for an ostrich-like
head-in-the-sand attitude is unwise on the part of
the Goan Church. And surely to be forewarned is to
be forearmed. It is good that he voices his
concerns in public, for in the internal fora of
religious institutions, independent voices tend to
be quickly stifled.
Before proceeding further, an understanding of the
functioning of the Church in property matters may help to
understand the issues involved.
Sociologist Alito Sequeira gave me a potted history of Goan
Church administration. In colonial times, the village
Churches owned the property which was controlled and
administered by a body called the Fabrica. The parish priest
and the Archdiocese had a limited say. During that time all
the Church institutions were largely controlled by upper
caste men.
After Liberation, the Fabrica has had its wings clipped and
the Archdiocese has seen its powers enhanced with respect to
control over property rights. They have registered societies
and trusts where priests hold controlling interests and so
now Church property too is "private property" of the
respective registered societies and trusts. The lay people do
participate in the Church functioning through Parish Councils
but these are just recommendatory bodies where appointments
need to be approved by the parish priest.
The Church does not believe in democracy but in
hierarchy. Everyone down to the smallest
functionary is appointed. Therefore each
functionary needs be accountable only to the one
above him. Sequeira suggests that in Goa the
hierarchical domination of Church property coupled
with the concentration of power in some upper-caste
Catholic groups and especially the Catholic
Brahmins led to much resentment among others. The
Chaddos were their main competitors.
Currently, from a legal standpoint, churches and other
religious institutions in Goa do not have fears about
relinquishing their property to the State. Except if the
State intervenes. Religious institutions like the Church
should not delude themselves into thinking that the State can
never intervene. For in India the State can always intervene
as the Right to Property is not a Fundamental Right.
And historically, the entitlement of the Church and Hindu
temples to property rests not upon Peter's rock, but upon
very sandy foundations. For one should remember that the
colonial laws which governed institutions like churches and
temples are still in place.
Of course, if at all the State does intervene a host of
Constitutional and legal issues will crop up. For instance,
Sequeira informs me that if the law of the rest of India is
applied to Church property then while the traditional
personal customs of the Church may govern decisions relating
to ritual, some State-appointed managers may run the
financial show.
Such a solution may be worse than the problem as it
is well known how honest State managers can be in
property matters
