PRESS BRIEF 07-02-2017

Fundamentalism Judges but Faith Heals

Bhopal: One week long 29^th Plenary Assembly of Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI), focussing on the final pastoral statement to reinvigorate the family apostolate of the churchreached its eighth day. 

Faith is dynamic, it heals and unites, but fundamentalism is static, it judges and divides, explainednewly elected Vice President of Dr. George Antonysamy, the Archbishop of Chennai- Mylapure,the main celebrant of the holy Eucharist.

He said, “Fundamentalism is the most serious threat to the secular Fabric of our Nation.”

Reflecting upon the gospel passage the Archbishop said to his fellow Bishops, “We are not called to judge people, but to heal them; because God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it through him.”

So to show the right way to all is our duty, but cannot compel any one to tread the shown path. When our faith reduces God to a narrow-minded tradition, philosophy, ideology, object and place of worship, we reduce God into an idol.

Citing a devotee, the Archbishop gave a new dimension to faith and said,“My God is not in objects I see, but He is in my eyes trough which I see.”

Faith enables us to see God in all things, in all people and in all circumstances, he reminded the practical dimension of faith.  

So the church must be a healing church, a dialogical church, and an agent of unity, he concluded.

The well-known theologian, Archbishop Emeritus Guwahati Thomas Menamparambil, began a day long prayer and reflection with the members of CCBI plenary session. During this time the assembly would maintain complete and meditative silence, reflecting upon the Word of God and the need of the time.