The Independent News Source
NCR on Kindle - NCR classifieds - YouTube - Twitter - Facebook - Email Alerts - RSS
PDF versionBurma: Power, politics and the church in Burma
Catholics question their hierarchy’s nonconfrontational strategy
Jul. 24, 2010
A monk stands after being halted by riot policemen and military officials while he and others attempted to enter the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, Burma, Sept. 26, 2007. (Reuters)
Part 3 of 3
BURMA -- As a Catholic boy growing up in 1970s Burma, Thomas saw only two paths in front of him. He was idealistic, loved his country, and hated the ruling junta. He could take up arms alongside ethnic rebels fighting the oppressive military regime that had ravaged his village so many times. Or he could join a Catholic order he saw serving the poor and educating young people.
After a period of prayerful reflection, he chose the latter and became Brother Thomas, feeling he could do more for his people through education than by pointing a gun. His choice of ministry over militancy has not, however, diluted his anger toward Burma’s ruling junta, which has held power through various incarnations since 1962. But there is another resentment as well, toward the very church he serves.
“I know Jesus said to love our enemies, but how can we love them?” Brother Thomas asked, referring to the military generals. “I can turn the other cheek, but I turn and turn and finally I just want to …” He stops abruptly, and with a clenched jaw punches the air in front of him.
Brother Thomas’s eyes grow unsettlingly intense as he recounts the times government soldiers stole his family’s livestock -- and their livelihood -- with impunity. He recounts the days soldiers came to his village, burned homes to the ground, and abducted townspeople for use as forced laborers.
The kind of theft, intimidation and forced servitude Thomas speaks of is common in Burma, and human rights abuses are shockingly prevalent in ethnic areas. (Some 30 percent of the country’s population come from tribal, not Burman, backgrounds.) The government’s use of torture, extrajudicial killings, jail without trial, and rape as a weapon of war is well documented by organizations such as the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
But as upset with the junta’s abhorrent practices as religious such as Brother Thomas are, some say they feel betrayed in a more personal way by their own church. These religious say they expect the junta to abuse and neglect its people. But they also expect their church to stand with them and against government oppression. This has often not been the case.
A recurring theme heard by this reporter during two weeks traveling through Burma was the view among Catholics that their church hierarchy enjoys an all too comfortable and nonconfrontational relationship with the junta.
NCR: February 3-16, 2012
Subscribe to NCR to get all the news and special features that aren't always available online. In this issue:
- US News: Bishops Host Conference on Immigration
Conference fields advocates' questions on law, policy
- Special Section: Deacons. Serving as parish administrator; roles of wives; and more
- Study: Black Catholics are more engaged
New study by Notre Dame researcher about parish involvement in America
In what many religious here consider an unconscionable practice, some bishops are said to host the junta’s generals for Christmas celebrations and other events. The church, these religious say, also routinely pays bribes directly to top generals in exchange for a small degree of freedom to operate and to maintain certain episcopal comforts. In a striking parallel to the way Burma’s junta itself operates -- where military officers at the top rungs live very well while enlisted soldiers often have to scrape by for their next meal -- some top church leaders live in a world of relative abundance while many lower-level clergy and religious are truly living out their vows of poverty.
Burma has no archbishop like Oscar Romero of late-1970s El Salvador to hear the cry of the poor and oppressed, to speak out for the disenfranchised even if it means facing the government’s wrath. In a long-established dictatorship like Burma, where the church is relegated to the sidelines of society, there have been admittedly fewer opportunities for someone in the mold of Romero to come to the fore. However, many Catholics thought the political upheaval of 2007 would have been the perfect moment for church leaders to speak out.
A moment missed
The would-be “Saffron Revolution” of 2007, led principally by Buddhist monks and crushed ruthlessly by the junta, put to rest any notion that the Catholic hierarchy might divorce itself from its accommodating relationship with the junta. During September 2007, tens of thousands of ordinary citizens and saffron-robed Buddhist monks held peaceful protests against the government. The burst of civil disobedience soon transformed into a broader movement against the illegitimacy and abuses of the regime.
It was the largest uprising since the 1988 student protest movement. (That almost-revolution led to dissident Aung San Suu Kyi’s party winning a landslide victory in the 1990 elections, after which the junta nullified the outcome and put Suu Kyi under house arrest.) Even more traumatic in 2007 was the way historically revered Buddhist monks were brazenly beaten and killed by government forces. The brutality and violence shocked the nation and the world.
“Where were Catholic leaders during all this?” Brother Thomas asked.
At the height of the conflict, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Myanmar (which, like most organizations in the country, uses the junta’s preferred name instead of Burma) released a statement urging Catholics to “make unceasing prayers and to offer special Masses for the welfare of the country.” The conference reassured citizens that the church was “doing chain prayers, fasting and perpetual adoration … for peace and development in the country.”
The statement went on to say, “In accordance with the canon law and social teachings of the Catholic church, priests and religious are not involved in any party politics and in the current protests.”
The absence of any direct criticism of the government crackdown was deafening. And many Catholics viewed the order for the clergy and religious to remain silent as an inexcusable washing of church hands. While the statement also said that lay Catholics were “free to act as they deem fit” with “proper guidance” from their religious leaders, most saw a clear message from the bishops to their flock: Keep quiet and stay politically disengaged.
“The statement was extremely disheartening,” said another young brother. “We were ready to act. Many priests and religious wanted to join the protests or find some other way to help the freedom movement, but we were told not to by our superiors.”
It is a commonly held belief here among Catholics that the decision not to criticize the regime and to keep religious and clergy off the streets in 2007 was made by local bishops in consultation with Rome.
During a speech in late September 2007, Pope Bendict XVI said he was following the “very serious events” in Burma and expressed his “spiritual closeness” with the people of Burma during “the very painful trial it is going through.” Benedict assured the people of his “intense prayer” and said that he “strongly hoped that a peaceful solution can be found, for the good of the country.”
If the statement sounds lukewarm, it’s because compared with pronouncements from religious groups and foreign entities it was tepid indeed. Days before the pope’s statement, Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu compared the Burmese protesters to the “rolling mass action that eventually toppled apartheid” in South Africa. The Anglican bishop said he supported the people’s “peaceful protests to end a vicious rule of oppression and injustice.”
The Evangelical Fellowship of Asia, an influential group in the region, representing Burma’s 1.5 million Protestants, said, “We condemn this brutal attack on religious leaders and civilians. We call upon Burma’s military government to bring an immediate end to this bloody crackdown and to pursue a path of peaceful dialogue toward democratic governance.” The U.N. and nations around the world were also highly critical of the junta’s suppression of the protests.
Lost credibility
Given the limpness of the official church’s response, many Catholic citizens in Burma, especially the religious, felt that the church hierarchy had lost serious credibility.
“How can we remain silent?” asked Brother Thomas. “As Catholics it is our duty to speak out against injustice. The church talks about the importance of social teaching and human dignity, but when it was time to speak out in Burma, nothing happened.”
There are reasoned arguments to be made for a nonconfrontational strategy. Diocesan officials stressed that open criticism of the junta could make life much worse for the church and laity. “We have to make compromises just to survive,” one official said.
Catholics, indeed, have a history of suffering persecution by their government (see accompanying story). Few will deny that Catholics are more vulnerable to draconian retribution than the majority Buddhist population. So one might argue that the decision to stay off the streets and remain silent during the protests and social upheaval might have been a clever move to allow the church to live to fight another day.
However, Brother Thomas thinks otherwise. “When will that day come?” he asked. “We can’t keep blaming our inaction on the generals. It’s an easy excuse for the bishops. They say that Catholics can’t take risks, but in reality most bishops just aren’t willing to put themselves on the line.”
Late one evening Brother Thomas looked pensively out on the village he serves. “We have two dictatorships in Burma,” he said. “One, the junta, who hate us. The other, the bishops, who won’t let us stand up.” He stopped and reflected for a moment. “We need more than prayers; we need deeds.”
Read all three parts:
Another issue worth noting
Another issue worth noting and studying: the neo-colonial practice of importing Burmese priests to serve in U.S. parishes. Despite cultural differences, accents difficult to understand, and the greater need in their home country, priests are brought to the U.S. from Burma (and other third-world countries) to compensate for the lack of American priests. Why? Because they have the resources and we have the money. I know a Kenyan priest in the U.S. who describes himself as a "cash cow" for his bishop and I know at least one Midwestern diocese with several Burmese priests. It would be interesting to know the financial arrangements and how this practice affects the Church in Burma.
The growing number of "rental
The growing number of "rental priests" is a perversion of the Gospels and being used as a facade by the American bishops to hide the lack of American priestly vocations so as to quell the demand, for now, for married priests, or God forbid (according to Rome) women priests. The Gospels teach us we should be sending money to these 3rd world countries without pre-conditions. Instead, our dioceses send them money ONLY if they send us prescious clergy that we can not produce on our own. Those people need the priests as much or more than we do, but their bishops are making deals with the devil if you will (American bishops) in order to get the financial resources that should be coming to them through our generosity, not through extortion.
Secondly, if you go here and cruise around, you'll see a growing number of pedophiles from foreign dioceses showing up on the lists:
http://www.bishopaccountability.org/
I can not help but wonder if these criminal priests were known to their bishops and sent over here to get them out of their own diocese. For instance, click on the map and go to the Baker Diocese of Oregon and read about Fr. Estrada from Colombia at the top of the list. After pleading guilty to a felony count of molesting a 14 yr old girl (4 counts were dropped in a plea bargain), he was deported back to Colombia. We do not know if he was defrocked, or defrocked or not, whether he is still allowed near young Catholic Colombian girls. Or whether he has been rented out to another country. And by the way, despite this being 2003 and a year after the Dallas "reforms", Bishop Vasa never went to the parish in Boardman, OR to ask for forgiveness for sending this criminal to the parish and never set out to find other potential victims. He never even told them why the priest was removed. The same was true of the parishes this criminal had been assigned to previously in the Yakima, WA Diocese. I would venture that if the foreign priests were withheld from the US by their own dioceses, 10% of the parishes would be closed overnight in about 75% of the dioceses in America. It is certainly true in the Baker Diocese. NCR could do us all a favor by gathering data on this "rental priest" perversion of the Gospel and publish it for all to see.
My parish currently has a wonderful priest from India, the best one we've had in years. In fact, the old timers think he is in the top 2 ever in their lifetime. 2 previous priests from Nigeria spoke English with accents no one could understand and had no pastoral skills whatsoever. They basically stayed to themselves, alone in the rectory. I don't recall a single wedding or baptism in that 3 year period. We lost half of our congregation and all of our CCD kids to either the Protestants or the Jesuit parish on the local Indian Reservation 35 miles away. We went 2 years without even a 1st communion class. They are slowly coming back with the new priest.
But why should we be depriving India of such a good and holy priest as the one we have now? The answer is that the Vatican would rather prop up the American cash cow of a Church with foreign priests than consider opening up the priesthood to married men and/or women (married or unmarried).
The reporter decided to
The reporter decided to change the names, etc., to avoid punishment by the government. That is compromise. Now, the people who are living there, and want to practice their faith, are in a situation similar to China. If they do something, they give their names.
The criticism of the Pope is coward. Yes, a bourgeois journalist in America can afford to say as he or she pleases, self-righteously. But the Pope has some responsibility towards his people in Burma. And by the way, the Church is right in not involving priests and religious people in party struggle.
Finally, it is a pity that the motivation of Br. Thomas to give his life to God is portrayed as political rather than religious. Based on resentment rather than on universal love. I can understand the suffering, but let us not put that as a model.
Brother Thomas is not the
Brother Thomas is not the only one who feels that the Bishops in any given country have sold out Christ & don't want to rock the boat so they can have a good life...
And who chose to appoint such "yes-men" Hierarchs???
On the first hand, thank you
On the first hand, thank you for publishing these articles.
Yet regretfully, NCR does not follow its approach toward this injustice, like it addresses the issues about sex scandals in US Church and worldwide.
More than 60% of NCR space is hypocritically occupied to address sex problems whether it's about homosexuals or pedophilia, be it in USA, Belgium or elsewhere. As if sex was the only problem in US and the world. It does’nt save words to condemn some other bishop’s or cardinal’s action when it comes to this issue.
Where are critiques on other issues about worldwide injustice critically fired towards YOUR administration? Isn't NCR part and parcel of american society?
Whole countries are dying of droughts, hunger, lack of water, and dictatorships, 'Catholics, indeed, have a history of suffering persecution by their government' (Burma) says Burmese brother Thomas.
Sudan and other African regimes follow the same pattern.
NCR must condemn the US administration for stopping short of condemning as evil regimes, not only North Korea and Iran, but also all brutal regimes who keep millions under the yoke of hunger, and slavery and violations of their human rights.
USA interferes ONLY where it has interest for multinational (read american) enterprises, to step in and to exploit gas, petrol, lithium etc. That's only one reason to explain why they are in Iraq and Afghanistan, after lying to both american voters and european governments.
The other story behind shields in Poland and other european countries under pretexts of deterring any nuclear attack, and to ensure american security, is sheer interference in Euopean affairs.
NCR doing the same thing, which brother Thomas is critical about: just raising awareness but keeping silence. Like Benedict XVI, NCR expressed a “spiritual closeness” to burmese people.
NCR, Catholics and other Christian denominations must be bold, and go a step forward like Archbishop Tutu has done: tell your government to send home the Junta and free Burma of its dictators.
As Br. Thomas says: “As Catholics it is our duty to speak out against injustice. The church talks about the importance of social teaching and human dignity, but when it was time to speak out in Burma, nothing happened.
Why doesn't NCR protest US Government and US Bishops to address injustice in the world?
”Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu compared the Burmese protesters to the “rolling mass action that eventually toppled apartheid” in South Africa. The Anglican bishop said he supported the people’s “peaceful protests to end a vicious rule of oppression and injustice’’.
Tutu went farther than the Pope, the local burmese bishops and clergy.
When ”dissident Aung San Suu Kyi’’ dies or is killed, only then will NCR, and American papers at large will condemn it with big headlines.
When it’s convenient, NCR too, like Burmese clergy, hides itself in the sacristy.
Raising awareness is not enough. Please use same measure both for American bishops AND your Government. After all, that’s what my firend Fr Roy Bourgouis does at Forth Benington, in favor of South American countries.
'Absence of any direct criticism' by NCR of US government inaction, is tantamount to complicity. Shame.
MYANMAR : MORE REFLECTIONS ON
MYANMAR : MORE REFLECTIONS ON THE NCR ARTICLE by A Reader (A rejoinder to the article published in Catholic News Update Asia VOL: IV - ISSUE: 22 - AUGUST 11th, 2010) - The Church in Myanmar is very happy when the Catholic press in other country’s visits and seeks to present an accurate picture of its situation to Catholics and other people in foreign countries, and especially in such an important country as the USA which has many Catholics.
But it is of the utmost importance that what is reported actually corresponds to the real life situation of the Church in Myanmar, and does not give a somewhat distorted image of the life of the Church there, the activity of its priests, and the role of its bishops such as the recent NCR article appears to have done.
The introduction to the NCR article is very revealing: it says a reporter for NCR recently went to Burma to look into what many call a troubling relationship among the church’s hierarchy, clergy, ordinary Catholics, and the military dictatorship.
One might well ask who is troubled by the present relationship between "The Church’s hierarchy, clergy, ordinary Catholics and the military dictatorship". Are the priests, the ordinary Catholics, the bishops troubled?
Is the relationship that ‘accommodating’ ‘comfortable’ one that the reporter depicts, one where the Church people pay bribes for permits, etc, and to keep its privileges?
Is that really how the Catholic lay people, priests and bishops see their current relationship with the country’s military rulers?
Is this really a true picture of the day to day life and situation of the Church in this country?
In the first part of the article he refers to the institutions the Church runs, even in the wake of Nargis: boarding homes, orphanages, technical schools and after school tutoring. If it had come out publicly behind the Saffron Revolution would it have been able to continue and develop this work?
The NCR reporter touches on but hasn’t sufficiently understood why it was that the Church in Myanmar was able to do the great amount of good that it did during Nargis.
In our view, it was able to do so – and to bring much humanitarian aid into the country - because it had chosen not to have a confrontational stance towards the government. For the same reason the Apostolic Nuncio can visit the country freely. Had it chosen a confrontational line, such as by coming out publicly behind the Saffron Revolution could it have continued with this work?
The NCR reporter fails to understand how the Catholic – and indeed Christian Churches are seen in Myanmar because of their colonial past. (The NCR reporter does not even consider the possibility that perhaps the Church might have created a problem for the Buddhist monks if it joined the Saffron Revolution, by linking them to the West.)
Is it true, as the NCR reporter says – based, it seems, on the testimony of one aid worker - that the Burmese authorities "were by no means cooperative" during Nargis and then, and on other occasions (such as when the Church requests permits to build, etc), it "regularly forced Church people to pay bribes"? Is this true? Did Church people pay bribes as reported in the article?
Based on comments the reporter has heard from some religious men and women, s/he suggests the Church in Myanmar has not really implemented the teachings of Vatican II for the laity and religious women. Is this really true?
The reporter says that some religious men and women told him that within their own communities "there is a feeling" that "the diocesan parishes do not do enough for average Catholics". This could be true (or not), but the same could be said in many parts of the world. There is always room for improvement, but that does not mean you put down the existing work of the parish often done in very difficult circumstances with little (financial) resources.
NCR reports that in the views of many Catholics in Myanmar the Saffron Revolution of 2007 would have been "the perfect moment for the Churches to speak out". Was it the perfect time to speak out in support of the revolution and challenge the government, and then what? The reporter should surely ask what real effect this ‘speaking out’ would have had? Would it have changed the military in any way? Would it have helped the monks? What would the result have been for the Church and its various works, institutions etc operating in the country? Who would have benefitted from this speaking out? What would the benefit have been? Would it have been able to assist the people of Myanmar – irrespective of religious faith – as it did during Nargis if it had spoken out then?
NCR reports that some ‘religious’ (presumably men and women) "feel betrayed in a more personal way by their own Church" and NCR adds that "a recurring theme" that the reporter picked up during his (or her) two weeks in Myanmar was concern over the Church’s "all too comfortable and non confrontational relationship with the junta"
NCR reports that "The absence of any direct criticism of the government crackdown was deafening. And many Catholics viewed the order for the clergy and religious to remain silent as an inexcusable washing of church hands……" It goes on to add that "It is a commonly held belief here among Catholics that the decision not to criticize the regime and to keep religious and clergy off the streets in 2007 was made by local bishops in consultation with Rome."
I am sure that some religious men and women, priests and Catholics think this way but the bishops decided on a different strategy, which – with the hindsight of today – appears to have been a wiser and more fruitful one in the long run (as already shown by what the Church was able to do under Nargis).
NCR describes the Pope’s statement as ‘tepid’ when compared with other statements, such as that of Bishops Tutu. The difference is that the pope had over a half million Catholics in Myanmar to care for in Myanmar, while Bishop Tutu did not seem to have such concerns (even though there are Anglicans in the country) when he spoke.
NCR reports that the Evangelical Fellowship of Asia representing Burma’s 1.5 million Protestants roundly condemned the military crackdown but it omits to mention whether in fact the Protestants (like the Catholics) within Myanmar took this stance too, or whether they (like the Catholics) took a non-confrontational stance.
While it may be true that many Catholics might have liked the Church to take a more confrontational stance with the authorities in Myanmar, is it true to say as NCR does that "Given the limpness of the official church’s response (to the Saffron Revolution), many Catholic citizens in Burma, especially the religious, felt that the church hierarchy had lost serious credibility" ? Where is the evidence for this statement? He says ‘many Catholics, especially the religious…" but how many did the reporter meet in 2 weeks? 100, 200, out of a total of 500,000. Is it fair to generalize like this?
While the NCR reporter in the last few paragraphs acknowledges the reasons behind the non-confrontational strategy of the bishops, nevertheless it emerges clearly that his heart is really with "Brother Thomas" (obviously a pseudonym), who wants the Church to take the ‘more heroic’ stance.
One might also say that the Church in Myanmar is not blind to the human rights situation in the country, or the plight of the immense number of poor people, or the limitations on its religious freedom, or indeed of the fact that here the military have ruled since 1962, and continue to hold power. This is the reality it has to live with and survive it, it has not the freedom of the Church in the USA, nor has it a free press.
The situation of the Church in Myanmar is not easy, nor is it easy to be a lay Catholic, a brother, a nun, a priest or a bishop in this land where there is so much poverty and so little freedom. It is not made easier by reports – such as the NCR’s recent article, that badly misrepresent or depict the life and actions of our clergy and our bishops in such a negative and unfounded manner. Such a report does not help our minority Church; while it may, at most, reflect the voice of a few it certainly does not echo the views of the overwhelming majority of the Catholics of this land.
The Church’s situation in Myanmar is delicate. We often walk a tight rope, but we are working nevertheless, night and day, and often with little resources apart from our faithful people, clergy, religious men and women, and bishops to make the Gospel of Jesus Christ an attractive reality for the people in this vast land.
The rising number of vocations in this country, the possibilities for doing good and helping and educating the poor, and the ever-improving relationship between Buddhists and Christians in this land is a testimony to the fact that the path the Church has chosen is being blessed by God.
Sure, the Church in Myanmar has a dream of what kind of future it would like to see for all the people of this land, and it prays that God will make that dream come true one day. It believes in the power of prayer and in the power of the Lord God to change the course of human history, also in our beloved land.
http://www.ucanews.com/2010/1
http://www.ucanews.com/2010/10/20/pressure-mounts-on-upcoming-polls/
http://www.ucanews.com/2010/09/28/myanmar-christian-leaders-calls-for-tr...
Great thniking! That really
Great thniking! That really breaks the mold!
Post new comment