இப்படியுமா ஒரு குரு கத்தோலிக்க திரு அவையில்??? (ON BLOOD DONATION)
Tuesday, 27 July 2021
Wednesday, 30 June 2021
Monday, 28 June 2021
Jerry Rosario: A humanitarian in donating blood in India
By Dalit Christian Digest -June 24, 20210
By Robancy A Helen
Jerry Rosario, an Indian Jesuit priest from Tamil Nadu, wears many hats. He is a theologian, a pastor, spiritual counsellor, writer, social activist, motivator, civil lawyer and retreat facilitator.
He is also the founder-director of four movements—DHAANAM, a Chennai-based donation advocacy organisation, JEPASA (Secretariat for Jesuit Pastors of South Asia) for socio-pastoral animation, IGFA for Ignatian spirituality, and MANITHAM for political analysis and action. The priest is a visiting professor in 42 institutions and has lectured in 38 countries so far.
Rosario is well known for his humanitarian services especially to the poor and marginalised. He is fondly called “Barefoot Jerry,” because he has given up wearing footwear as a mark of his solidarity with those Dalits and poorest who are denied the right to wear it by the caste-ridden traditions. He stands first among the blood donors in India and he has donated blood 208 times and continues to live a simple life and promoting blood and organ donation.
Dalit Christian Digest interviewed him to know more about his life and work. Excerpts:
Dalit Christian Digest: Please tell us more about yourself.
Father Jerry Rosario: As a Jesuit of Tamil Nadu, I am involved in parish ministry for about 23 years and served in four dioceses. All the parishes that I served were in the periphery or remote villages and slums. I mention this since the poorest people over there have taught me much and shaped me a lot. Only then came some higher studies in Sociology, Philosophy and Theology, and as such, I minister also as a visiting faculty in several seminaries and colleges and social institutes, both in India and outside.
I also involved in myriad ministries like conducting youth programs, training the laity, writing books besides articles, organising human donation camps, free–legal services, ecumenical pastoral schedules, counselling, animating political conscientization–workshops and networking with some grass-root movements.
When did you start with the idea of donating blood?
Jerry: At 19, I had started the blood donation. My first blood donation saved a rural young person of my age then, by the name Murugan who was vomiting blood profusely. That he was saved, for me, was a matter of delight and inspiring. Afterward, when I was a student at the Arul Anandar College of Karumathur, Madurai district, Tamil Nadu, South India, there was an invitation to start the blood donation in the University–Colleges. At that time, that was a novel venture.
With the support of the Jesuit management, I took the initiative of motivating the students for the purpose. I tell you, in 1974, about 183 out of 510 students, that is above 35 % of Arul Anandar College donated their blood. In the whole of Tamil Nadu, that was the first time that an Arts and Science College had organised blood donation camps.
Many of the students, not only me, have continued this noble act even after leaving the college–campus. Some of them have made it an annual feature to organize blood donation drives in their respective work spots and living areas. Thus, it has picked up certain momentum which eventually has birthed a movement at large for human donations.
What made you donate blood to children?
Jerry: At the Madurai Rajaji Government Hospital, there was then a case of a Muslim couple losing their children at the time of delivery due to the incompatibility of their blood groups. Thank God, my blood group—O–Rh-negative can serve as the most universal donor. When the couple was expecting a child for the third time, the doctors planned ahead and accordingly invited me to donate my blood a week before the delivery time. Once the child was surgically taken out, my tested blood was immediately infused.
The doctor took me into the delivery room and pointing at the newly born girl child, he said this which still rings in my ears as a huge motivation: ‘In one sense, this is as if your child’. What a weighty and indeed, joyous statement, for a celibate priest like me!
Out of my total 208 times so far, 67 times I had donated in this way at the time of delivery for the newly born ones, if not for the pregnant women themselves. As you may know, now medical science has improved immensely and there are other ways of saving newly born children from such a critical context.
I heard that your photo is kept in Chennai Government hospital. What is the reason behind it?
Jerry: Every year, the Government of Tamil Nadu and the AIDS Control Society of Tamil Nadu come out with posters on June 14 (the World Blood Donors’ Day), and of October 1 (Indian Blood Donors’ Day), conscientising the general public over the dire need of blood donation.
The posters are to be displayed at all government hospitals all over Tamil Nadu and also at the mega–blood donation camps and public avenues. Any country is instructed by WHO to have at least of its population as voluntary blood donors since any commercialization of blood is illegal since 1998. India procures only 0.7%. It so happened, for a year the poster carried my picture. That’s it.
You have written books on organ donation and now promoting a campaign on it. Could you please share your experience with that?
Jerry: In 2009, I registered trust with the name of ‘DHAANAM’ as a new Jesuit ministry to promote all kinds of ‘HUMAN DONATION’. It begins with blood donation. Goes on to promote the donation of eyes, skin, bone, cord blood cells, hair, breast milk, life cells, vital organs after brain–death, body parts after accidents, and also the cadaver donation for medical studies and research.
In particular, the last cadaver one is also permitted by the Catholic Church, way back in 1956 itself by the then Pope Pius XII, with a condition that the body is being donated having still in the faith in the bodily resurrection.
With all the above and other related details, I have so far written three books on human donations. In Tamil, it is titled, “DHAANAM” and in English, “A PRESENT FOR THE FUTURE “. The third book, now out of print, was titled, ‘THIS IS MY BODY, THIS IS MY BLOOD”, borrowing from Christ Jesus who was indeed the first and the best blood and body donor, already 2000 years ago.
The DHAANAM movement has so far conducted over 600 camps for human donations. Also, it has engineered various dioceses and secular units to take this cause up, as a socio–pastoral activity, a number of our institutions and congregations have come forward to promote human donations. We have a long way to go, though!
What made you dedicate yourself to empowering Dalit Christians and what do you think of Dalit emancipation?
Jerry: Some five years before my priestly ordination, as a Jesuit scholastic, I was working during the summer vacation in a Catholic rural parish. It was there, I got jolted at the inhuman treatment perpetuated over the Dalit Catholics by the Catholics of so-called high castes. One example, the Dalit Catholics were not even allowed to have footwear. In case anyone of them was found wearing, he or she and the concerned family members were beaten up. I still remember, when I took this matter up with the parish priest, he strongly forbade me to talk about it.
To live with that memory and as a mark of solidarity, from that year onward (1977), I have had given up wearing slippers and shoes, even while going abroad. Moreover, the memory took me after the ordination to those Dalit parishes where some similar dehumanizing practices were being kept up.
Now, I have a count: In total, I have served in 71 hamlets and villages of those parishes. In 37 of them, I could bring about some changes in favour of our Dalit Christians. My inner voice conveys that seeds of change are sown and they will indeed come up sooner or later.
What made you skip your breakfast?
Jerry: Down the years of my involvement with the Dalits and other marginalized sections, have challenged me in multiple ways. The simplicity of life is one of them. Just a manifestation of it is ‘skipping breakfast’ and thus, living healthily and happily with one and a half meals a day. I have had received this challenge from the parishioners of Malligapuram of Chengalpattu diocese, some 35 years ago. I have determined to carry on with this and also another 12 challenges, so long they help me sustain ‘the smell of the sheep’, in the words of Pope Francis.
By the way, it is not just simplicity or solidarity for its own sake. Out of the money saved, I am involved in some specific schemes for the grace and growth of our Dalit Catholics, especially the girls and Dalits of Dalits. That way, this becomes an ‘other-centered and lived–spirituality. In other words, it is a productive way of life. Ultimately that is the call we all have received from God. If so, why not?
Sunday, 13 June 2021
Saturday, 12 June 2021
Sunday, 28 March 2021
Sunday, 21 February 2021
Wednesday, 17 February 2021
The Barefoot Master - An Interview to SIGNIS
16/02/2021
Courtesy: http://signis.net/news/world-2/16-02-2021/the-barefoot-master
Xavier Carbonell (SIGNIS Correspondent).
The first question was natural and honest –we were, already, beneficiaries of his confidence–, while sharing a hot chai tea: why are you barefooted? When we are kids, it’s easy to take off our shoes, run over the stones, let the dirt slip through the fingers, until the hunger comes and we return to our homes. But the priest I faced was almost seventy years old, out of which he has spent more than a half shoeless. And his feet have become hard over the burning red soil of India.
The barefoot priest is called Jerry Rosario, and he needs no introduction. He has no cellphone, he only wears two pair of shirts and he checks –not too often– his email, to keep in touch with friends like me, far away. I had the fortune to talk and laugh with him, and before he left I gave him a cartoon of himself that I drew: what else could I offer to an essential man, so absolutely rich, but a pinch of joy and gratefulness?
A few weeks ago, chatting with the group of friends that traveled together to India last year, I told them that I wanted to interview Father Jerry; this morning I received his answer, written in uppercase phrases, very similar to his voice. I dedicate this conversation to them, so they can hear again the intense, joyful and defying words of the barefoot master.
***
Dear Father Jerry, can you tell us about your childhood, the discovery of your calling, your life as a young Indian Jesuit, the long path of love for the poorest and the voiceless that brought you to this moment?
Indeed a very interesting enquiry. Let me try my best to answer it to the extent possible. I begin with this disposition because I rather a free and well-to-do life till a joined the Jesuit Order. Still, one thing was clear: something substantial I have to do during my life-journey. That too, for the poorest of the poor and the neediest. This emerged within me, though with no clarity. My domestic environment and family –upbringing with an air of freedom did allow me to nurture the above-mentioned feel within.
Here, I remember my dad who was a government official and yet, he had a deep and personal love for the neglected and the ignored. He was a man of few words but lover of the least. My mum’s societal and analytical sense also had influenced my childhood-growth.
With that backdrop, I joined the Society of Jesus, wherein I came across my higher-ups, formators and educators, encouraging me, and formees to keep growing with such and interest and much more, motivating us to benefit from direct involvements with the downtrodden. What exactly had touched and transformed me was the rural exposure schedules that we had every year as formees. We were beckoned to live with the poor, love the poor, and much more, learn from the poor.
The last one, “learn from the poorest”, came to be my life-mantra (formula). The rural poor in India are found to be content with the basic needs and yet, in their own way, quite happy. Why not I too grow in “simple living and high thinking”? True, more than all theories and texts I did receive gratefully than my formation and education years, the people at the periphery not only challenged me and concretized me immensely. If so, we can learn from one another for a “life and life in abundance” (Jn. 10, 10).
You gave up wearing shoes long ago, which has become a powerful symbol for those who know you. Is it painful, difficult? What is the deep meaning of this gesture?
Partly, I have answered the question already in the last. Still, I have something more to convey. In our Indian scenario, we have a long tradition of casteism. Due to that, the lowest castes are treated very inhumanly, even though the context is currently under some structural change.
In our Christian societies too, discriminations and differences are being maintained. One of those measures was the denial of “right to footwear” to the lowest steps, imposed by the upper steps of the caste-ridden ladder of society. Social scientists explain that discriminations are being maintained in tradition by those inhuman conditionalities. In simple words, if a low caste person moves around with footwear, it will mean that he or she and his or her associates are venturing against tradition. Those persons will be terribly thrashed and tortured.
Such incidents happened when I was at one rural-exposure program. Thoroughly I go shocked and shattered. All the more, when I found it to my utter dismay that the Church authorities were not ready to read and respond squarely to this “burning issue” (Ex. 3, 1-12). To keep that memory, I gave up the footwear. It is now for 42 years and more. It is a mark of solidarity. It is also a manifestation of sensitivity. Moreover, a ministerial spirituality.
After my priestly ordination, I have gone back to those villages where something of the above conditionality is very much in force. I cannot say I was successful in all places. Through my socio-pastoral ministry lasting above 23 years in 7 remote rural parishes that had altogether 71 villages, I could bring in changes, big or small, in 37; but not in the other 34. Yet, I know I have had sowed the seeds of Good News of justice and they will bear fruits in God’s time.
Yes, responding to your question, I have to accept that “going barefooted” has its pains. But, we know, “no pain, no gain”. Pain for us and gain for others, particularly for the marginalized. I should end with this challenge that I have given to myself in course of time: “I should ever possess in my personal life a pinch of reality with the least, the lost and the last, so that all what I preach and teach will have a punch of it”.
You have devoted a great part of your life to the dialogue between religions and spiritual traditions –especially Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam–, under the example, among others, of Periyar E. V. Ramasamy. What makes you think that, in the present conditions, the construction of a common culture of peace is possible through spirituality?
Thank you for a probing question. My search, in this respect, all throughout is coloured by these concepts: societal reformation and transformation have to be engineered holistically. In that process, spirituality has a profound service to render. For this, let us have a look at this demanding notion: an adult, matured and responsible spirituality would be the one that gives to us a response-able quality and ability to the concerns, causes and cries of living societies and cosmic situations. In other words, spirituality is not to be obsessed with the otherworldly longings. That will be an escapism from the current context of human and cosmic life.
Dialogue with cultures and religions, then, will only enhance the process of birthing a new society that is free from classism, casteism, racism, tribalism and traditionalism. Humanness will be the one that matters ultimately. It will be one human family with all equality, liberty, fraternity and harmony. It will have the joy of generating and divinizing “a new earth and a new heaven” (Rev. 21, 1-7) when we commit ourselves to go by the above understandings and undertakings; a common culture of peace is tremendously possible through an inter-religious and inter-cultural and inter-ideological spirituality. We need to remember, “with God's favor, nothing is impossible” (Lk. 1, 37).
Many saints and important figures of the last century –for example, Saint Oscar Romero– saw the prophetical value of media. As an author and communicator, do you feel close in this sense to any of these spiritual masters?
For the prophetical value of media and communication, I cherish and get enriched by the impressive figure of Oscar Romero. Why? I got ordained along with my companions in 1982. It was only two years after the assassination of Oscar Romero on 24th March 1980. So much so, our batch published a book on persons that included Oscar Romero, on the very day of our ordination, 2nd May 1982. In that book I wrote on Fr. Rutilio Grande, whose assassination on 12th March 1977 had a lasting impact on the life and mission of Oscar Romero.
Here I should recognize also some others of last and past centuries who too came to me powerfully due to their communication skills and strategies: Alberto Hurtado of Chile, Joseph Vaz of India, Miguel Pro of Mexico, Martin Luther King Jr. of United States of America, Camilo Torres of Colombia and John Bosco Burnier of Brazil.
In this confusing world, where the people doesn’t know what to believe, your simplicity and joy of heart indicates a great devotion for the essence, a desire of pure things. How to become free of the anxieties and disturbances of today’s lifestyle and be more aware of our relation with nature, with others and with our own inner reality?
To this enquiry, I love to refer to a sound psychological dictum that has helped me much and can also inspire you: compare and compete with yourself. Stop comparing and competing with others. In case you still tend to compare and compete with others, do them with the simple folk. That is, a gaze at the sidelined with your heart, not with your eyes, will liberate you from undue anxieties and unhealthy disturbances.
Naturally, then, we will come close to nature. Both our life-substance and our life-style will become very much cosmos-friendly. Did not Buddha say this, many a centuries back: reduce your desires and lead a life of enlightenment?
You have studied carefully the message of the Encyclical Letters Laudato Si’ and Fratelli Tutti. What is your opinion about Pope Francis’ project for the planet and all those who want to save it? How different is this particular Pope?
Pope Francis’ vision and passion for humanity and cosmos are very inspiring and inviting. His stand expounded in his Laudato Si’ and Fratelli Tutti is a definitive call for a harmonious life with all the creation at large. The cosmic spirituality that is highlighted in his encyclical and exhortation is an ignatian maxim that goes like this: “find all in God and find God in all”, that way, this pontiff comes across a “sign of contradiction” (Lk. 2, 34). His stand is against oppressive capitalism, insensitive consumerism, exclusive subjectivism and indifferent humanism.
No doubt, his thoughts and trends will not be stomached by one and all. Be sure, he has truth on his side. Truth will triumph. Ultimately the reign of the divine has to come with the historization of the Gospel-manifesto of Jesus of Nazareth (Lk. 4, 16-21). Personally, I am edified by the inner freedom that Pope Francis consistently, courageously and continuously displays and demonstrates. We all are privileged to live at a time when one is “walking the talk”, even while occupying the Chair of Peter. I view so. What do you say?
Priest, preacher, activist, author, barefoot monk, saint… when the futility of labels disappears, and the original face is the only thing that remains, who is Jerry Rosario?
Someone who attempts ongoingly to be responsive and responsible to the God of the poorest.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)