Of late, I have become a fan of Malayalam novelist Pathrose Ayyaneth. In the 50’s and 60’s, when the Catholic Church was at the glorious zenith of its feudal power and conservatism, he dared to expose its all-pervasive double standards, immorality and hypocrisy. In spite of Church’s efforts to harass and socially ostracize Ayyaneth, there are still many who admire his courage to take on the all powerful and almighty Church.
One of his books that I looked forward to reading was Manushiya nee mannakunnu (man, you are dust). This novel has been considered one of the more controversial of his works.
The back cover gives a micro synopsis of the book: ‘Father John bent down to gather a handful of the freshly dug earth. He then threw it over the dead body and prayed in an emotionally choked voice: thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return. This novel is the sad and painful story of a seventeen year old girl returning to dust and a priest who wept as he threw that handful of dirt over her.’
In his brief introduction, Ayyaneth says that this is the tale of a naively simple man who had to suffer with Christ on Golgotha for having accepted, in a moment of weakness, the priestly cassock. The subplot is woven around a wealthy Catholic who managed to buy heaven at a price far below its market rate.
Here is the story in brief. John comes from a poor family. He falls in love with his classmate. The girl’s father opposes the relationship. She is married off to another man. John sulks for a few days falling into a kind of mild depression. In this state of mind he applies to the bishop for admission to the seminary. He is accepted. In the minor seminary he is raped by the Rector - an incident that leaves him psychologically shaken.
After ordination he is sent to a rural parish. There, Father John first falls in love with the melodious voice of seventeen year old Ammini and later with the girl herself. Ammini is the love child of the previous parish priest and a nun; she is being brought up by Varkychettan, the bachelor sacristan. Father John, unable to control his natural urges, makes midnight trysts with Ammini who soon finds herself pregnant. He vacillates between leaving the priesthood to marry Ammini and continuing in his calling. The former is an extremely difficult decision: it will bring shame to his family, the parish, the bishop and the clergy. Besides, he has no skills to earn a livelihood. The latter decision is even more difficult – his conscience keeps nagging him. In the end, he obtains a bottle of ‘medicine’ from a backyard abortionist and tricks his teenage lover into drinking it. She bleeds to death. As parish priest he is forced to officiate over her burial service.
The villain of the piece is Anthappan Muthalali. He owns all the rubber plantations in the area. Outwardly, he is a front-row mass attendant, prays loudly, confesses regularly and above all contributes generously to all the pet projects of the bishop. In gratitude the bishop has recommended and obtained for him the Church honour of “Chevalier”. Privately, he is a hardened criminal, wife-beater, womanizer and murderer. He is poisoned by his own daughter whom he has been sexually abusing for years.
By way of appreciation I would like to highlight and comment on certain issues raised by the author through his characters.
There is great sympathy for Father John who became a priest more by force of circumstances than by choice. The novel is an indictment of the Catholic Church’s strict rule of priestly celibacy. It is purely for administrative efficiency as well as for not losing church property to children of married priests that the celibacy rule was enforced from around the 10th century. There is not a single sentence in the bible that priests should not be married – in fact, most of the apostles were married. The irony is that the church which vehemently claims homosexual acts and use of condoms to prevent AIDS to be against nature, is forcing priests to go against their very nature by not marrying and playing their role in the propagation of the human race.
The indoctrination during a priest’s seminary life is geared to turn him into a clog in the feudalistic church machine. ‘First obey, then question’ is the old style seminary discipline.
There is little or no difference between a seminary and a prison. Both are under the spotlight 24/7. Chances of committing sin by both sets of inmates are limited. However, once the individual is out, his morality often takes on the character of the bull in a China shop.
Nature in its mysterious ways has endowed all creatures with certain urges and tendencies for continuation of the species. In humans these urges of the flesh cannot be totally annihilated; they can be subdued and sublimated by brainwashing individuals in falsehoods based on out-dated ancient philosophical thinking: the virgin and the chaste are superior to the married; heaven awaits the pure of heart, etc. Once outside the walls of the seminary, these urges come back with a vengeance. The priestly class itself has prompted and manipulated the little lambs to place them on a high pedestal; so much so, to abandon the priesthood in response to one’s natural urges is considered extremely shameful. The perception that a priest or nun in a family raises its status is a myth that has been assiduously cultivated by the clergy themselves as part of their strategy of clinging to this artificially created high status.
The Church’s double standard in treating the faithful is clearly brought out by the honourable way it treats a hardened criminal like Anthappan Muthalali. The financially well-off who contribute generously to church coffers are held in high esteem by the Church. Their antecedents are irrelevant. Look around and one can observe many such Anthappan Muthalalis hobnobbing with the hierarchy.
A man’s basic nature does not change by the laying of hands or by wearing a cassock or when a priest is made bishop. Humans long for love, including the physical. Take the case of former bishop John Thattumkal of Cochin Diocese who has been kicked upstairs to Vatican. In 2008, under the pretext of adoption, he kept a 26-year old woman in his ‘palace’. ‘This relation is giving me spiritual refreshment’, he was quoted as saying. The priests of his diocese, however, felt that the ‘refreshment’ was more physical than spiritual.
“To love someone is nothing, to be loved by someone is something, but to be loved by the one you love is everything”
[Published in the June 2011 issue of Snehasandesham]
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