 | Father Vanderputten (SSPX) about his apostolate in India |
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| Sujet : Father Vanderputten (SSPX) about his apostolate in India |
| Date : 2002-07-04 18:34:41 |
Dear Friends, Six years I have been a priest! It seems like a life time and yet only yesterday. How good is God! The visits to the priests continue and there are many positive signs. Just 2 days ago the coordinator for S. Goa called informing me that an old priest whom we had been visiting for months is now willing to offer the True Mass! The assistant bishop of Bombay has put a positive article in the diocesan Paper stating that the Lefebvrian movement is coming back to the church and Campos is the 1st step! The poor faithful must be a bit confused as they were just warned in Feb that it was a 'wicked' movement! and no association with it was possible. Of course the article made it look like Campos agreed that it had been wrong all along! I guess they have to save face! They can't admit they have been wrong for 35 years! Our District Superior was with us for 5 days last week. He spent most of his time with the seminarians teaching them up to 7 hrs of Latin each day! He was very pleased with what he saw, and encourages us to build a convent as soon as we can. The construction on the new priory is well under way and the property has been raised 2 feet, walled, and a well dug. We hope to be living in it before Christmas. At the end of this month Fr Blute goes to the U.S. to preach a Retreat to the priests and to beg from the generosity of the faithful there to continue supporting us. The Sunday collection here from 75 faithful is about 300 rupees which comes to about 6.00 U.S.! A good wage in Bombay is 250 rupees (5.00 u.s.) and that's for a 12hr day! Ice cream and picture film costs as much here as in the U.S. ! Diesel is about $1.00 a gallon! Many women will work all day rolling cigarrettes and get 49 rupees $1.00% U.S! The gap between the wealthy and poor is enormous. Just today a woman came begging. Her husband has no legs and no work. I gave 50 rupees which is a huge amount. We only give 2 or 3 rupees usually. She returned quickly with her legless husband to ask for more! They demand money, especially as they see my white face! I must be loaded! They are poor, I am rich, I must give. Their ingratitude is quite stunning to me as they never thank you and some of them become indignant if they think 'the white man' hasn't give them enough! It teaches one true charity as you do it only for the love of Christ knowing that you wont get any thanks from them. It really shows me how so much of our charity is almost always tainted with human consideration! The poverty is truly profound and yet at times when I see the slums in Bombay (supposed to be the biggest in Asia) I wonder how people like this who have been born, bred and raised in such conditions would react if given wealth. It's really heart rending to see the poverty and then the Satanism for all the suffering is wasted. It reminds me forcefully how wonderful is our Faith. There is no joy in suffering here. All is misery. And they will just reincarnate to do it all over again! What a hell! So the church men want to relieve poverty: worker priests, Socialism, Communism etc. Everything but the true answer which is giving these poor souls the hope of eternal happiness by joyful acceptance of the crosses Christ gives and the living of his commandments. It is a terrible country in a very real sense for even the Catholics to an extent are obsessed with money and possessions and convert not so much because of Truth but for what they can get out of if. Even St. Francis Xavier complained of this. As an example, we've been going to a village for 10 years every Sunday, even starting a school. We recently stopped because the men after many admonitions continued to 'sell' their daughters in marriage to Hindu men! They liked us coming because it gave them a sort of prestige and status over the other villagers! Faith is not something which is important. It has little effect on their daily lives, thus few saints. e.g. Garcia Gansalves spent most of his life out of India, martyred at Nagasaki Japan born in a Portuguese fort. Blessed Joseph Vaz born in Goa missionary of Ceylon, Blessed Alphonsa a Carmelite and Blessed Agnelo a religious priest also in Goa. We have now started teaching catechism in Singumpari where I go every Sun. Every sat. Evening I drive the 1 hour out there and go around the village collecting the children, bringing them to the church and teaching them the Hail Mary, Our Father and Apostles Creed, through an interpreter. I feel like a real ,tiny St. Francis! What was our surprise when on Fri the 12th we get a call from the train station from Fr.Christinaw Pancras an 80 year old priest who just arrived from Madras, 12hrs away! to visit with other priests who believed the Catholic Faith and offered the True Mass! He had breakfast with us then we took him to St.Thomas Town, our little estate out in the country 1 hr away where Fr. Couture was teaching the seminarians. He assisted at the Solemn High Mass then came the hr back and took the 12 hr. train that night back to Madras! happy to have met us and joyful that he's not the only one fighting for the faith. He has a doctorate in philosophy, studied in Rome (all in latin,) was in Germany for several years, started as a Jesuit, then worked as a Diocesan priest for 47 years! He was recently made the spiritual director for the seminary in Madras and when he sent the ones home who were homosexual or just came along for the ride, the bishop remonstrated with him. He then informed the bishop that he could no longer continue as it would be against his Faith! He is now building a small chapel and hopes to wake up the people in Madras. His mother is still alive at the age of 94! and 2 of his brothers are priests and 3 sisters are nuns. The other 6 got married! They are all living! One of the faithful in Bombay has started a Traditional Magazine and another is sending out 1000 answers to the Cardinals letter of Feb. So the numbers are small but dedicated. The temperature is now a little less hot but still one does not look forward to being outside for too long at any time! In June I had to leave the country to get my Visa stamped so I spent 2 days on an island in the Maldives. They're just off the south west coast of India and there's over 1000 of them! I spent much of the time in the water, got burnt bad but the fish were exotic! It's the first time I've seen such magnificent beauty in the wild! I never got the chance while in Fiji though I had swam on the reef out there. The 2nd day a 3 foot shark swam by me and momentarily I panicked then said wait! I'm at least 5 times bigger than he and he'd never get a chance at eating me anyway! It was much better after that! I also saw a huge turtle which was a bit scary as well. The 2nd day I swam in my cassock as it was the only way I could think of not getting burnt even worse. The little fish must have thought I was a big white whale! On July 8th I have to leave the country again. This time to renew my Visa, so I'll spend 5 days at our house in Sri Lanka and hopefully they wont give any problems in renewing it. School has started again and we have 20 boys again in the hostel with only 4 new ones. We don't want to get bigger than this so as to have greatest influence and control. They are very good boys and impress me with their simplicity and openness. Whenever they see the priest they come to get signed on the forehead. Thus they get blessed several times each day. They study enormous amounts of matter and thus have tremendous memories but they comprehend very little and are not thinkers. They tell me that 70% of computer technicians in the U.S. are Indian! One drawback is that the Indian can be very closed, going through all the motions but never letting you know what he thinks. It is with these boys that we hope to instill in them the totality of Catholic virtues. We hope some day to have a school of our own as even the Catholic schools have a deplorable system of education all based on simply passing the government tests with the highest score possible. After almost one year here and extensive travels I still wonder what it is that the decadent 'Christian' West finds in the decadent Pagan/Satanic East. By their fruits you shall know them. So far I have found nothing to compare to the glories of Catholic Western Civilization whether in art, architecture and certainly not cult-ure! It is true that there is ancient thought, and philosophy here but obviously they haven't accomplished much. It seems by and large that thought and ideas are completely disassociated from life though perhaps it must be, as the thought is so filled with contradictions it wouldn't get far in real life. I think the West sees the East with Catholic/Christian glasses, takes the 'good' and discards the bad. It's still strange though as the little good that's able to be found abounds in plenty in Catholicism. I think it boils down to self and pride. 'Good' and any 'good' but not Catholicism! It is truly Satanic. There is no such thing as Redemption in Hinduism and it is a thought totally alien to their philosophy. It is always an awesome contemplation when one ponders on how God has allowed so many souls to be so immersed in such contradictions, evils, and sin. Though another striking element is the modesty of the women which in the villages is very laudable and every girl is expected/demanded to be a virgin for marriage. Many of the marriages are still arranged by the parents and obviously there's no such thing as dating! Maybe some of our Western youth should come out here till they reach man-hood! The movies and movie posters are quite sensual though and the movies are filled with sensual dancing and invariably are about a 'love' story. So the film industry is eroding the morals of the people, and of course everyone has television, no matter how poor or in what kind of hovel they live. Some will not have sufficient money for food but always enough for a T.V. and the electricity to run it! Until next time In the love of Our Dear Lords Sacred Heart. Fr.Angelo |
