A good shepherd

This incident happened four years ago. We, a group of Delhi-based journalists, had been invited by His Grace to celebrate Christmas. The party had just begun when a heavily-drunk, middle-aged man barged into the room and started blubbering. He claimed to be a Catholic. He was abusing the clergy and the whole Catholic community when the Archbishop intervened. His Grace called him to his side and patiently listened to him. But the more His Grace humbled himself, the more aggressive the intruder became.

Some invitees had begun losing their patience and they even thought of calling the police. But such a thought didn’t even cross His Grace’s mind. I was watching the whole drama but I cannot say at what precise moment the man buckled. He was seen touching the Archbishop’s feet and apologising for the nuisance he caused. He did not leave the hall till His Grace offered him a piece of Christmas cake and he gratefully accepted it.

Few people knew that the Archbishop, born Alan Basil, was orphaned at a young age and had to flee his native village in Mandalay district of Burma, then part of India, in the wake of the Japanese invasion. He was a natural citizen. Once, at an informal get-together, when an aggressive journalist reminded him about his physical features, which were "more European than Indian", His Grace asked him who a typical Indian was? "A dhoti-clad, short-statured Tamil or a tall and hefty Punjabi or a flat-nosed Naga?" The newsman was left speechless. He would never dare to ask the question again.

As fate would have it, the anti-Christian propaganda and attacks coincided with his stewardship of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India. In his assessment, what angered the vested interests was not the so-called conversions but the siding of the church with the poor, enabling them to fight for their rights. The Christians tending to the poor and the needy in the far-flung areas of the country knew that if ever there was an attack on them, they had in His Grace a powerful voice to defend them. He did not distinguish the Catholic from the Protestant or the Hindu from the Muslim when it came to speaking against injustice or oppression.

Thus when the Babri Masjid was razed to the ground, he did not keep quiet but made a trip to Jama Masjid to empathise with the Muslims. It was a stinging statement against the government of the day for its inability to protect the shrine.

Until His Grace became president of the CBCI, media relations was almost an alien concept for the church. It was not uncommon for the church to issue press notes weeks after the event. Slowly and steadily, he tried to sink it into churchmen that the fourth estate was as important as the other estates. He cultivated the press even at the risk of being called a publicity-monger. Little did his critics know that nothing mattered to him more than the interests of his flock. He was indeed a good shepherd, who "fought a good fight, finished his course and kept the faith".