Leadership of Bosco Penha

refH22nd October 2008

Give Us Today “The Mass”

His Excellency

Archbishop Oswald Gracious

Archbishop’s House

21 Nathalal Parekh Marg

Mumbai 400 001

Sub : Under the Leadership of Bishop Bosco Penha

Your Grace,

With reference to the afore mentioned captioned subject, we would like to bring to your notice that since last 20 years, with his callousness, Bishop Bosco Penha has not only taken the Mumbai Tamil Catholics for granted but also disintegrated the Mumbai Tamil Catholics. The spiritual requirement was never fulfilled by him and instead he also imposed several “Antichrist” activities in the Church. Please refer our earlier correspondence for the same. The Tamil Catholics are unsatisfied by the activities of Bishop Bosco Penha. Many a times his activities have provoked to lose faith in Christianity. The Tamil Catholics would not remain under his Leadership even for a Day.

That despite your assurance, in respect of our repeated correspondence, all our legitimate demands still stand un-heard, especially in respect of our spiritual requirements but instead, several restrictions have been imposed upon us, with a view to curtail our religious freedom.

In the unlikely event, if the Archdiocese of Mumbai is still stress on continuing with the present leadership and keep on neglecting our aforesaid legitimate demands, then we are extremely regret to state that, no more we are willing to fallen prey at the hands of Bishop Bosco Penha and / or the Archdiocese of Mumbai and the consequences, if any, of whatsoever nature shall be entirely credited to the Bishop Bosco Penha / Archdiocese Mumbai. The Tamil Catholics would not remain under his Leadership even for a Day.

Kindly peruse the same.

Regards

Members / Leaders of BCC Groups

Women Catholic Group

Tamil Catholic Association -Mumbai

1

Your Holiness,

With the words quoted by His Grace, Pro-nuncio of India, we are indeed humbled to write this letter.

We are all one in Christ as different parts of one body of Jesus Christ. Still Your Holiness makes appeal to all countries, especially to India over the issue of discrimination or on the issue of freedom of religion. That shows how much Your Holiness has been concerned about the value of religious freedom as well as the value of equality. We are very happy to hear Our Shepherd 's voice to the whole world about the need for Peace, Happiness and Harmony among the people irrespective of caste, creed, language, culture, etc. That is very much compliant with the biblical quote as mentioned in the letter of the Our Pro-nuncio.

However, in the case of our Problem which we have already brought to your notice for years together, the value of freedom of religion in our local language and in the equality of coming to the main stream of our Archdiocese is totally  refused or denied otherwise. The way the delay is still on even after many years shows that the justice is denied for us.

What kind of equality or freedom of our local language is permitted in our own Pastoral and Spiritual living? This is just to brief nature of our problem which we address to Your Holiness.

Follow Up

With the brief as afore-mentioned, Your Holiness, we the people need to request for a sincere follow up of our matter. Otherwise, the matter is just thrown out without any serious consideration at all. We understand the health problem of our Cardinal Oswald Gracias. Even in case of his health problem, every other matter is taken care of; but our problem is kept pending as we trust our Cardinal and a kind of delay in our case is totally unwaranted. 

Our need is very urgent but very simple: It is very easy to appoint a Tamil speaking Priest as Parish Priest in our Parish. We do have atleast four Archdiocesan Priests who are appointed in most of the Tamil populated Parishes. Where as, in our Parish where the majority are Tamil speaking as Parishioners, the authority either does not want to give us or could not find any of their choice of Priests. That shows that our needs depend on the need or priority of the authority.

Hence the follow up is also very simple: It is very clearly simple and clear that our need can easily be followed up. Why is then the delay is on? What exactly the reason for such indifferent attitude towards us, the Tamil Speaking Parishioners?

Present Scenerio

While the follow up is denied, we remember that our Cardinal Oswald Gracias had told us to be in touch with him later after six months which we could not make it up due to unavoidable situations. However we were told by the Archbishop's House to take appointment after Cardinal's return, namely after 29th October. 

With this, when we contacted the Archbishop's House for having appointment with the Cardinal, we were told to do two things: 1. Wait for completion of Cardinal's rest as required for his better health. 2. Or you can meet Bp. Bosco Penha as he is presently In-charge in the absence of Cardinal Oswald. We find the answer as best to as left to us to decide either to approach the present In-charge of the Archdiocese or wait for Cardinal's health.

Irrespective of these options, the way the new Secretary, Fr. Neil Santos was interacting with us shouting that you all dont use the language card! What a surprise and insult for us! We have already been affected by such inhuman and indifferent attitude of the authority; but now again the same is repeated from the Secretary who is supposed to be the sincere link between the people and the local authority & this is the kind of situation with the youngest, as we heard about him, from the eldest, you can imagine how much serious and urgent our prooblem is! 

The present scenerio is total rejection of our demand and need for a tamil speaking Parish Priest to be appointed for our Parish. We dont want anything to do with Bp. Bosco of whom we have already registed about his bias and insincere 

We have decided not to do either of these, though we have tremendous respect for our Cardinal. When the need is very simple and serious and the delay has been for unjustly too long, why is not possible to do the Justice

Expectations

Suggestion