Portugal na Pole Position com Américo Aguiar

Esta semana começou com uma notícia estrondosa, logo seguida de uma pequena polémica. Ambas ainda dão que falar.

A notícia estrondosa e surpreendente foi a de que D. Américo Aguiar vai ser elevado a Cardeal pelo Papa Francisco no próximo consistório. Escrevi um artigo no blog para tentar decifrar a notícia e as suas implicações, e depois fui convidado pelo Expresso para fazer uma versão um pouco mais elaborada e completa para publicar no site desse jornal. O artigo no Expresso está aqui, mas é só para assinantes. Em todo o caso, o essencial do texto está no blog.

Entretanto surgiu a polémica. Numa entrevista à RTP, dias antes de se saber da nomeação, D. Américo disse, a propósito da JMJ, “não queremos converter os jovens a Cristo”. A frase tornou-se viral, sobretudo em certos meios das redes sociais, mas também no estrangeiro.

Ora, eu consegui falar com D. Américo e pedi-lhe um esclarecimento sobre essa frase. Podem encontrar aqui o seu esclarecimento e o meu comentário. Uns ficaram satisfeitos com a explicação, outros não. A vida é mesmo assim. Mas leiam e decidam por vocês.

A conversa que tive com D. Américo serviu também para complementar um perfil que escrevi sobre ele para o The Pillar, em inglês, que podem encontrar aqui.

Também no The Pillar publiquei, na semana passada, um artigo sobre Goa. O governador daquele estado tem dito que chegou a altura de apagar os traços portugueses da região. Como disse um historiador de ascendência goesa com quem falei, isso implicaria demolir toda a cidade velha, e deportar uma boa parte da população. Naturalmente os goeses de ascendência portuguesa estão nervosos. Leiam, que vale bem a pena conhecer esta história.

Também este mês foi publicado um artigo meu sobre a questão dos abusos sexuais na Igreja em Portugal, nomeadamente sobre o trabalho da Comissão Independente, e tudo o que se lhe seguiu. Está na Brotéria, que não tem edição online, mas se tiverem oportunidade de comprar a revista de Julho leiam-no também.

Por fim, esta semana o artigo do The Catholic Thing é diferente do habitual. Brad Miner faz a recensão de um filme que acaba de estrear e que fala do terrível mundo do tráfico de crianças para escravatura sexual. Não é uma leitura propriamente agradável, mas são realidades que devemos conhecer, nem que seja para rezar, muito, pelas vítimas.

Hospital de Campanha - Episódio 7: Novidades cardinalícias

O Papa Francisco nomeou uma série de novos cardeais, que vão ser elevados ao cargo no próximo mês de Agosto. Neste episódio analisamos essas nomeações e o que significam à luz do pontificado de Francisco. 

Nesta lista não consta nenhum português, mas há muito de interesse para Portugal nos nomeados!

Um dos novos cardeais vem de Timor Leste, é o primeiro deste país. Este facto serve de ponto de partida para falar um pouco sobre os 20 anos da independência do mais novo país lusófono do mundo. 

Por fim, alguns minutos para falar das novidades sobre as Igrejas ortodoxas na Ucrânia e na Rússia, onde se registaram mudanças importantes nas últimas semanas. 

“Dialogue is at the heart of the Christian mystery”

Full transcript of my interview with Fr. Darren Dias, a Canadian Dominican priest and expert in inter-religious dialogue.

What exactly is your involvement in inter-religious and ecumenical dialogue?

I am primarily involved in inter-religious dialogue. I am on the Hindu-Roman Catholic Dialogue of Canada, it's the first type of dialogue the Canadian Bishops have sponsored outside of the monotheistic faiths. There was already dialogue with Jews, a very old dialogue of the Church, and Muslims, and now Hindus.

I also teach at the University of St. Michaels College, in the faculty of Theology, where my area of interest and research is religious pluralism, that is, what is the significance of the simultaneous presence of multiple religious traditions in the World.

Does your Indian background have anything to do with being on that commission?

It may do. I am not a specialist in Hinduism, there are those on the dialogue who are more so, but certainly culturally, because my grand-parents are from Goa, I can relate to Hindus that would come from India also. So that may be one of the reasons. The other reason also is my area of interest.

Because of course that would be very specific and very different from dialogue with Muslims and Jews...

That's right. The first, Ecumenical, would be dialogue with just Christians, and there we have a common faith in the One Lord Jesus Christ, so there is a basis already for Dialogue. With Jews, of course, because Christianity grew out of Judaism, we have a common Scripture, what we call the Old Testament, common notions around God and the divine. We also have a basis for dialogue which is Theological.

Likewise with Muslims we share faith in the One God, we are monotheists, so we have at least that type of basis. What does monotheism call us to live ethically, morally, so there is a basis there.

When you move outside of Christianity and the monotheistic religions, into dialogues with Hindus and Buddhists, its different, because we have less in common theologically, we have less of a shared European and Middle Eastern tradition. So that makes the dialogue a different kind of dialogue. It may start on Human questions, anthropological questions, social challenges. So I think it's true that the non-Christian and non-monotheistic dialogues present a new way of dialogue with the Church.

In terms of the Canadian society, are relations between Hindu and Christian communities generally peaceful and fruitful?

Yes. Canada is a fairly multicultural and multi-religious society, it is predominantly still Christian, at least nominally, and people practice their faith without any sort of problem. It’s a peaceful coexistence.

Religious dialogue with Hindus is very new. We have often gotten together, people of different faiths, on social or political issues, but the religious factor wasn't really entering into the discussion, so it is a new thing. Having said that, there are always, and this is unfortunate and its a problem around the world, incidents of intolerance. We have certainly had an increase of intolerance towards Muslims in the past months, we have had anti-Semitic actions in the country, now they are rare, but still significant. So it still shows that we have a lot of work to do, and that although some might say that tolerance is the lowest common denominator, we still have work to do in the area of tolerance, even a country as open and tolerant and diverse as Canada.

I've heard that it’s not clear cut that Hinduism is a polytheistic faith, that it might not be as simple as that. How would you describe it?

I think that one thing that Christians and certainly Roman Catholics have an advantage with is that when we enter into dialogue we are appointed by the bishops and we can say that we speak from a certain position and we have a shared understanding on these things. To say the same about other religions like Hinduism, and it is the same for Judaism or Islam, there is no central authority, there is no central body to say this is what we believe and this is how we understand ourselves. So our dialogue with Hindus is different because we dialogue with different expressions of Hinduism, and within Hinduism there is such a great diversity of belief, there is such great diversity in the way Hindus would articulate their beliefs, that it would be hard to answer your question, certainly as a Christian, but also within the Hindu tradition there would be many ways of expressing it. Some might say that in fact there is one source of being, and therefore they are not actually polytheists. Even the categories of polytheism and monotheism might be Western, Judeo-Christian categories that Hinduism does not fit into. That is part of the work of dialogue, to reach across those boundaries that make categories difficult to discuss.

No salvation outside the Church? What does this mean exactly?

No Salvation outside the Church is a common adage. It was certainly in the literature of the Roman Catholic Church before the Second Vatican Council, but it hadn't been used, even in the 19th Century, very often. We know that in around 1949 there was a famous case with a Boston priest named father Leonard Feeney who interpreted that quite literally. And both the bishop of Boston and also, eventually, the Holy See. The CDF and the Pope were involved with this discussion, which is to say that even in 1949 we did not take this literally.

So after the Second Vatican Council that phrase "Outside the Church, no Salvation", has disappeared from all official literature because, in fact, the Church teaches that there is goodness and truth outside of Christianity, there are seeds of the Word, there is the Divine presence in other religions, so there is indeed salvation outside of the Church.

There are still those in the Church who would say that inter-religious or ecumenical dialogue should essentially be about trying to convert non-Christians and bring the separated Christians back to Rome…

But then it would cease to be dialogue, it would become evangelization, it would become mission, and they are strains in Christianity, which is an evangelizing religion, but even in that evangelizing mission, John Paul II wrote that dialogue is a part of the evangelizing mission of the Church, so that as much as we are called to evangelize, in the sense of explicitly making others Christian, we are also called to dialogue, that is to learn not only about people of other religions, but in our dialogue we learn about God and about who we are.

With all the emphasis on dialogue, however, is there not a crisis in the Church view of evangelization? Certainly some in the Protestant world decry the fact that the Catholic Church seems to have given up on active missions to evangelize non-Christians.

That might be a misperception. Certainly the Church has gone through various phases of its evangelizing mission, the first generation, that is, the Jewish Church that evangelized the gentile world, is different than it was in medieval time when the Church sought to Evangelize Europe, and it is different with the sixteenth Century, with the so-called discoveries, when missionaries would evangelize, along with the colonization, so you have a mission which is linked to colonisation, and that lasted right up until the 18 hundreds and early 19 hundreds. So every era there are exigencies which make Missionary activity different. Today the situation is such that we would not evangelize in the same way that we did in a previous generation, that would be suicide for the Church. However, it doesn't mean that the Church ignores its evangelizing mission, but it probably does it and understands it in different ways.

There is no such thing as a forced conversion these days, but there was in the past.

So I think that our Evangelical brothers and sisters would remind us that we still are constituted by a Mission, the reason that there is a church is for the mission. The Gospel mission. There is no doubt. How we witness to the Gospel is different in every era, and I think part of our witnessing today is to enter into dialogue with those who are different from us, and I think that is actually at the heart of what the Gospel is about. So that in the incarnation of Jesus Christ there is a divine and human dialogue, the Word becomes flesh, so that at the very heart of the Christian mystery there is dialogue and for us to be performative of dialogue really behoves us, then. Dialogue helps us to discover the fundamental attributes of what it means to witness to the Gospel.

Again, this might be a misperception, but the idea we have over here is that Canada is an extremely liberal country. In that issues like abortion, gay marriage, etc., which are contentious in the USA, seem to be settled in Canada. Is Canada mission territory?

Well, everyone is in need of mission, in a different way. Everyone is in need of witness to the Gospel.

While the United States professes a separation of Church and State, I think they're religion and State are still fairly linked. Canada does have a pretty healthy separation of Church and State, and there is a real separation.

I think Canada is socially conscious on many issues. So, whether it is socialized medicine, or education which is a public system of post-secondary education, or even refugees, immigration laws, compared to the US, where they have a private medical system and very expensive post-secondary education, so in that sense it is a very socially conscious and collective country, compared to a more individualist consumerist society, in the US. But certainly there is always work to be done in every society.

I think Canada might be a little bit different, because how the Church, or religious groups, would seek to influence public policy, would be through society and the promotion of values, and in the promotion of human or Christian values, people can buy into them even if they are not, lets say, Christian. I think in the USA it is often about influencing law-makers. Its really about the state and how the State controls things. The distinction I am making then is how to evangelize a society through society itself, through culture, or how you might evangelize society through the mechanisms of a state, and I think those are two very different approaches.

Recently the Vatican commission for religious dialogue with the Jews published a document giving weight to the idea that there is no need to evangelize the Jews because they already live in a salvific covenant with God. This is in no way a consolidated idea within the Church, what is your take on this?

That document which came out in December 2015 is an important document. It is a reflection on the past 50 years of relationships with the Jews and in some ways it enumerates the great strides that have been made. It addresses some of the areas which are of ongoing concern and one of the things that it did address is that it said quite explicitly that the Roman Catholic Church no longer has any institutional mission to converting the Jews, and that is based on a scriptural, Pauline notion that God does not take away his promises, and so the promise that he made to the Jewish people remains.

The New Covenant, as we Christians call it, with Jesus Christ, does not abrogate the old covenant with the Jews. So I think that it affirms what is a common theological principle, or idea, that these two covenants are related and intertwined, but that the Jews, because they have an ongoing relationship with God, would not need missionary activity, they would not need to become Christians, so the Church does not have a missionary outreach to the Jews in the way that it had had in the past. For example, there were some religious communities which were founded exclusively for the conversion of Jews.

I actually think that what is very significant in the publication of that document is that a group of Orthodox rabbis also published a document around the same time, I think it came out a few days before, and this was a first in modern history, for the Orthodox Rabbis to really respond to the invitation of the Roman Catholic Church to dialogue, and I think that is really an important step. That our dialogue is a real dialogue, it is not just the Church producing documents, but we see an effect in other religions, which respond to the invitation to enter into some kind of deeper relationship with us.

So in that document, which was a very fine document issued by the dicastery on religious relations with the Jews, I think the more significant thing is that Orthodox rabbis, for the first time, have responded.

Concerning the polemic at Wheaton College about whether Muslims and Christians worship the same God, how do you see this issue?

I am less familiar with the details of the Wheaton situation, though I know about it. So I will answer in two ways.

What I think is very troubling about the Wheaton situation is what is the role of academic freedom? How do theologians have freedom to make statements and to explore research without being disciplined? So one thing is a collegial concern for academic freedom.

I think that Pope John Paul II, in Algeria, when he was on a visit, was quite clear to say to the Muslim Youth that we worship the same God, and we both, all religions, not just Muslims, but all religions, have a temptation to make God in their own image. And one of the things that dialogue does is remind us that we have to avoid the temptation to make out of God something that we want. We see this with extremists, with so-called Muslims, some would say they are not even Muslims, the ISIS people, creating God in their own image. And this leads to intollerance and violence. The alternative to dialogue is violence. So like when children don't have words to express themselves, they express themselves physically, violently, and this is what could happen when we make God into our own image, into something that will further our own agendas, then there is no more room for dialogue and violence ensues.

As a Dominican you are heir to a long tradition of dialogue…

That's right. The order was founded by St. Dominic in the early 13th Century, and Dominic, at the time, faced the great Albigensian heresy in Spain and France, and he observed the way the Cistercians had been trying to evangelize, to bring back these heretics. Now the heresy was a problematic heresy because it denied the very goodness of Human creation and it denied the effect of the resurrection, that is what dualisms do, when they are too spiritually or non-materially oriented, they negate and they denigrate creation, so it was a very problematic heresy.

The Cistercians went out to convert the heretics, to bring them back to the Church, but they were not successful. And one of the things Dominic realised was that some of the criticisms of the heretics, that the Church had become too worldly and they were too involved in power and they were too wealthy and they weren't following the Evangelical precepts, he realized in his dialogue with them that some of the criticisms were true, so he adopted a very simple, austere and poor lifestyle, and then began to enter into conversations with them about theology.

His method was to speak to people, so he spoke sometimes throughout the night to heretics to try and bring them back. So his approach was quite dialogical, we would say today, and it was never heavy handed, and never forced.

An example of how dialogue can also be mission...

That's right.

How well do you know your Goan heritage?

My father was born in Goa, as were my grand-parents, and they moved to Toronto, so I knew my grand-parents, and obviously I knew my father. So I would have heard many stories, and certainly culturally we observed many things, religiously, food, certain customs. But I don't speak the language, which is Concani, because Salazar did not permit the use of the local language. So we lost a lot because of the Portuguese colonization, we lost a lot of the culture, and it was a 450 year colonization. So we have our own Goan culture, but we also have influences of the Portuguese, but beginning in the 40s many people began to leave Goa, so we are a diaspora people, like the Jewish people. There were not a lot of opportunities in Goa in the 40s and 50s and so people began leaving, so there is a culture of the migrant people which is different from the Goa of today, because with the liberation in 1960, and the return to India, the culture changed again.

I have only been there once, and it would have been very different than my parents or my grand-parents' generation, and yet that is a Goa that I don't actually know, because it doesn't actually exist anymore.

But was there a big diaspora in Canada?

There is, yes, in Toronto. There is also a diaspora in London and here in Portugal, of course. I suspect that the Goan population is larger outside of Goa than in Goa.

So there was a community aspect to your experience in Canada?

Yes, there was. There were a few clubs and associations, and there still are. So that is how things are transmitted in Toronto, Montreal and London.

"Asia Bibi's imprisonment is a political and not a legal issue"

Archbishop Joseph Coutts. Foto: Edgar Sousa/Renascença

This is a full transcript of my interview with Archbishop Joseph Coutts, of Karachi, Pakistan, about the situation of Christians in Pakistan, the Blasphemy laws and Asia Bibi.
The news story, in Portuguese, can be found here.

Transcrição integral da entrevista ao Arcebispo Joseph Coutts, de Karachi, sobre a situação dos cristãos no Paquistão, a lei da blasfémia e Asia Bibi. A reportagem pode ser vista aqui.

Occasionally we hear stories of persecution coming out of Pakistan, bombings, killings and so on. But what is life like for Christians on a daily basis in your country?

Unfortunately the news that gets out is all the negative news.

When you use the word persecution, I'd just like to clarify that, if you mean persecution by the State or the government is persecuting the Christians, that is not the case.

Of course, as a small religious minority in Pakistan, we have always faced discrimination and are trying to fight against it, things like that were always there, there were always difficulties. But what we are experiencing now, that you are hearing about, the bombing of churches and attacking of Christians, that is a new phenomenon; it’s a new experience for us.

It was a traumatic experience when it happened the first time, in 2001, just after the Americans began bombing Afghanistan, after 9/11, in October. Shortly after that the reaction was very strong, because thousands of Afghan refugees started arriving in Pakistan and all the pictures of women and children crying... Two angry young men, Muslims, entered a church and just started shooting on a Sunday morning, they killed 14 Christians and injured many others.

That was the first time really that Muslims came and attacked a church! We never had that before. Since then we have had even worse experiences. Just this year two more churches were bombed. So this is not coming from the government, it is coming from those extremist groups who have their own agenda and who are a threat even to our Government and other moderate Muslims.

Do you feel that the Government does all it can to protect you?

The Government itself is not in a strong position.

Finally, last year in June 2014 the Government took the decision and the army launched a very big offensive involving about 30 thousand soldiers, with air support, in the mountains bordering Afghanistan, where many of these extremists have found a very good refuge. It's a very difficult terrain, very difficult to control, and this is where they had their factories, producing their homemade bombs, the suicide jackets and things like that. The army action is still ongoing, and we hear reports that there has been some success, but it’s a very slippery adversary, they can very easily slip across the border into Afghanistan, until the heat is off, regroup and start again. So it is a very tricky, difficult and dangerous situation we are in.

Take the current time, Ramadan. Does it affect Christians at all? Are they still free to eat in public during the day, for example?

We see that overall society in Pakistan is becoming more and more Islamised. In this sense, and this is a good example, during Ramadan we see a gradual increasing in the position of Islamic rules that eating houses should be closed and nobody should be found eating during the time of Ramadan, whether Christian or Muslim, and a few years ago it was not so. So there is hardly an option left.

Of course, being Pakistani Christians we are aware of this and we wouldn't want to desecrate or show disrespect for this very deeply religious activity of fasting.

Is there a difference between the city and the countryside? Or from region to region?

I think there are certain areas where there is more prejudice. I am in the large city of Karachi, in the South, which is our largest city, with a population which is easily twice that of Portugal, a big commercial and industrial city, very cosmopolitan, with people of different ethnic groups, many Hindus there - unlike other parts of Pakistan. Things had always been more tolerant in Karachi, while in other areas, specially the rural areas, where the imam still a strong religious and leadership role, with the use of the mosque loudspeaker, if the imam happens to be a fanatic it becomes very easy for him to use the loudspeaker to rouse the sentiments of the people, and this is what has happened not only in villages but also in cities where a false blasphemy accusation.

If the imam takes it up and announces it over the city or the village mosque, then even the Muslims who are sitting neutral, if they hear that the holy book has been desecrated, or the name of the holy prophet has been maligned there is an emotional reaction.

If you were approached by a Muslim seeking conversion and baptism, how would you handle the situation?

Nowadays we would handle it very carefully, with great caution, because it could also well be a trap, and that has also happened, people coming just to try and get us into trouble.

But basically our task, as Christians is not to convert people, but to be witnesses to our faith, to show what it means for us to be Christian, and to be Christian in that particular milieu, and I think much of what we do and say is reflected in all the institutions we have. The Church is very strong in the field of education, we have hundreds of schools, we are generally highly respected and there are many Muslims in our school, many of our teachers, together with Christians, the staff is common. For example, in Karachi we have only one Catholic doctor. The medical advisor is a Hindu and nearly all the other doctors are Muslims. It is known as the Holy Family hospital and it is well known.

In this respect, in terms of conversions and baptisms, for example, do you find that the more informal Protestant churches have more freedom? And does that present difficulties for you?

The freedom is there, but if you misuse it you get into trouble.

Let's be very clear... Muslims are very sensitive about this idea of conversion. When the blasphemy law was passed they wanted to pass another law that if a Muslim changes his religion, he should be declared an apostate and killed. It was not made into law, but it shows you that the thinking is already there.

Are Christians the most oppressed religious minority in Pakistan, or do other groups have it worse than you?

There is a group called the Ahmadis, or Mirzais. The Ahmadis say they are Muslims, but officially they were declared non-Muslims in the 70s, and they say that is not fair. So this is really an internal theological problem there, which makes it very difficult for us to interfere in any way, not being Muslims. They say they are Muslims, but Pakistan is the only country, I guess, where they have officially been declared non-Muslims, they are really being persecuted.

  

The fact the Pakistan is such a homogenously Sunni Muslim country, does that bring you closer to Hindus, Shiites, etc? 

I don't know whether you would call it a homogenous Sunni country... We have a very large minority of Shiites. I don't know the exact figures, but certainly not less than 20%, which is not a small minority. Then there are also other branches of the Shiite movement.

Where the problem is coming from, from the religious point of view, is not from all the Sunnis, it is from some branches. For example, we have the Wahhabis, the Deobandis, these are all Sunni groups. But Wahhabi Islam is the kind of Islam you find in Saudi Arabia, and it is a very narrow and restricted form of Islam. It is the Wahhabis, usually, who are very intolerant and do not easily accept the Shiites and other small groups, like the Ismailis within the Shiites.

Would you say that Wahabbiism is a relatively new phenomenon in Pakistan? Is this a different form of Islam than your father would have recognized in Muslim communities?

This kind of Islam has grown in the last couple of decades. We never had this before. It has come up... There are a number of factors, but this form of Jihadi Islam, promotion of the idea of Jihad, this happened when the Soviet Union entered Afghanistan in 1979 and then that threw a lot of fear into the Western world. 

Remember that is 79/80 the Soviet Union was still a superpower; in Europe you still had the Berlin Wall. So what it meant was that Afghanistan had fallen to communism, and Pakistan might be next. “So stop the communists!” Because if Pakistan fell, it meant an opening to the Gulf and to the source of the Western world's oil, so the USA, with Saudi Arabia and with our government said they better stop the communists right there, and they found the people to do the fighting, the extremist groups. 

The idea of Jihad was officially promoted. Jihad in the sense of taking up weapons and fighting the enemy. The enemy were the atheists, the communists who had entered Afghanistan, a country that is 100% Muslim. So it really appealed to any believing Muslim: Stop atheism, and you are protecting your brother Muslims. So hundreds of young men were trained, with American and Saudi help, to go and fight in Afghanistan.

So what happened to the arms that came in? Given it’s a country with so much corruption, a good percentage went into the black market, into the hands of criminals, drug dealers, into the hands of political parties, and others. With the result that nowadays Pakistan is afloat with small arms, it is very easy to obtain even hand grenades, submachine guns and things like that.

Some of these groups are better armed than our police force. So it is really a big challenge for our government. Our police was not trained in this kind of warfare, using suicide bombings, which most Muslims say is Haram, forbidden, just like in Christianity. But they justify it.

So there are strange things happening within Islam, and what is dangerous is that these groups which were quite isolated and had different agendas, such as Boko Haram, Isis, and here you had the Afghan Taliban, now you also have the Pakistani Taliban, you have Al-Qaeda, it seems they are spreading a new kind of Islam that was not there.  

Has there been an attempt by the more traditional Islamic forces of the Indian subcontinent to try and counter the influence of this Jihadi Islam, and is there any chance they will succeed?

They may be few in number, but they are well armed and well supported. From where exactly, I wouldn't know, and that is what our government would like to know. 

You see the Madrassa, which has been an Islamic institution for centuries, was just a school where you studied the Koran, but when 9/11 came and we had these issues, many madrassas were used as breeding grounds for the selection of young men to be brainwashed, religiously, to go and fight.

And up to now we don't know how many new madrassas just sprang up during those days. Our present government is trying to control that, and to see what is being taught in these madrassas, because many of the problems arise from there. They are fertile ground to recruit young men with the idea of Jihad. 

Are there any high ranking Christians in the Armed forces, police forces, judiciary, for example?

The highest army officer we have is a two star general, just one, but we do have others up to the rank of colonel, a few brigadiers, many majors.

So you would not say that Christians are kept out of the armed forces...

No, but I would say it is impossible to have the Chief of Staff as a Christian... And officially our Constitution says that the President and the Prime minister have to be Muslim. 

Of course you have Christian politicians...

We have a minister now, a federal minister for ports and shipping. 

So there is some participation in the Public, military and political life, for example.

Yes, there is, there is. 

We have heard so much about the blasphemy laws, for so many years now, has anything at all been done to at least reduce their harm?

Ever since this law was introduced, we as Christians have been protesting.

Of course it brings an immediate emotional reaction. The point that has finally got across to the Muslims who did not want this law abolished is not just the abolition of the law but the way the law is framed, that we need safeguards to prevent the misuse of this law, which is what has been happening all along.

I think there is more awareness now in the country. Earlier it was just not accepted that what was happening was that the law was being misused to settle personal enmities, jealousy and other things, not just to get people into trouble, but even to get them killed. And there is talk, more and more, of putting in some safeguards to prevent this from happening.

Which you would consider a success?

It’s something, definitely! Because things are bad, the way it is being misused.

Do you have any idea how many people in general are in prison at the moment because of the blasphemy laws?

There are statistics, but I don't want to give the wrong figures at the moment. There are many Christians, but many Muslims as well.

But are we talking about dozens or hundreds?

Not hundreds, but certainly dozens.

Because this affects not only Christians...

The law is for everybody! And at the moment, statistically, there are more Muslims in jail for blasphemy than Christians.

The Government has now passed a law stating that the first thing to do is to have the person examined for his mental state of mind, because some of the cases have happened with people who were not mentally sound. It is very easy to want to kill such a person, so the person first has to undergo a psychological test.

Nobody has ever been executed because of a blasphemy law, but it is still life threatening just to be accused, is it not?

Yes, that is right. The law has not yet executed anybody for Blasphemy, but all the killings have been extra-judicial and they have been like lynchings. The emotions take over and before the person has a chance to clear his name, it is too late.

Sometimes even after acquittal...

That has also happened. A few years ago there was a case of a 13 or 14 year old boy accused of Blasphemy, of having written very bad words on the wall of a mosque. Finally, when the case came up in the high court it was proved that the boy was hardly literate and that it was impossible for him to have written those kinds of words. He was rightly acquitted by the high court, but the fanatics kept screaming for his life. There was an attempt to kill him. With him were his two uncles, who were also accused. They killed one, in a drive-by shooting by two Muslims on a motorcycle, and the boy and the other uncle were slightly injured. They had to be hidden and were finally given asylum in Germany, I don't know where they are now. This was over 10 years ago. They were Christians.

Of course the most famous victim of the blasphemy laws has been Asia Bibi, what news is there of her? Is she ill?

I wouldn't be able to give you up to date condition of Asia Bibi, I am right down in Karachi and she is up North, about 1300 km away, our Justice and Peace Commission is handling the case, with a number of NGO's supporting, but I don't have the latest information, so it would not be fair to say anything right now.

When Western governments and influential figures speak about her case and put pressure on the Pakistani government, might this be counterproductive?

Yes, because you should understand that it is not just the government. The Government is not strong. This kind of extremist fanaticism is very strong, in the sense that if you are the judge you will be threatened, and you will be very careful before going against an existing decision of the court for the death penalty.

A few years back we had a parliamentarian, a very fine lady, a Muslim, who had said she would put in a petition in Parliament to review the blasphemy law. The intention was, ultimately, to abolish it. When some fanatics came to know this they started threatening her, and the threats were taken seriously.

She being a very capable lady, a parliamentarian and otherwise very knowledgeable, was appointed an ambassador to another country, to protect her. She is back now after a few years.

So that is how it is. It is not the government alone that has the power to take the decision. They have the power, but if they make the decision they also fear the reaction.

Why is she even still in jail? Is it a legal issue, or a political issue?

It is more political, and it is fear of the extremists.

I'll give you another example. Shortly after Asia Bibi was condemned to death, by the lower court and not yet by the higher court, it was none other than the governor of the most powerful province of Pakistan who, being a very fair minded person, a Muslim, went to the jail to visit Asia Bibi and suggested she write an appeal to the President of the Republic of Pakistan, because the President has the power to commute a death sentence. And he told her not to worry, because he would take her appeal personally and present it to the president. 

When that appeared in the press the next day, the fanatics went mad! Who was the President of the Republic to grant pardon to somebody who has insulted the prophet? The best remedy is death!

So when you are up against this kind of thinking, and these extremists are not only ready to kill, they are ready to die. And that is where you have this whole thing of suicide bombing.

Do you believe she will be freed, eventually?

That would only be a guess. The efforts continue, and that won't stop.

You were born before partition...

As many people were!

And is your family originally from Amritsar, where you were born?

No, my parents are originally from further South, from a place called Goa.

(Edgar Sousa/Renascença)

When there was partition and your family found themselves in Pakistan, a new country formed especially for the Muslim community, did it ever occur to them or to any Christians who found themselves in that situation, to move away? Did it occur to them that things might reach this situation?

No. Because nearly all the Christians in Pakistan were already where they are. My father had an option, because he was working in a multinational company and if he had wanted to stay in India he could have asked to be transferred to Delhi, or somewhere else, but he just continued in Lahore. So there was no question there, and I think most of the Christians were quite happy.

Remember that at that time the founder of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah had made a beautiful speech, where he said to the Parliament: “You are free to go to the mosque, to the temple or to any place of worship. What you believe has nothing to do with the State. We must all now learn to be Pakistanis first”, which was very reassuring. So the stress was not on being Muslim or non-Muslim, but on being Pakistanis in the new country.

At that time, I can only imagine, because I was a couple of years old, everybody must have been very happy with that. But what we have been seeing, as things have been developing, the idea of Pakistan as a homeland for Muslims, as a modern democratic state… Now we hear the extremists saying they don't want democracy, it is a Western concept, they want a Caliphate, an Islamic State, which is something completely different from what the founding fathers of Pakistan had in mind. 

And that is where the real clash is. It is not Muslim-Christian, it is a whole new ideology, and these extremists are basically against the State. When they attack us it is to embarrass the state. 

If things don't improve within the next few years, if they get worse, as is happening in many Middle Eastern countries, for example, is there a future for Christians in Pakistan?

Some already think that there is no future. 

A number of Christians, a few hundred perhaps, have already found refuge in Sri Lanka, because visas are not too difficult to obtain, a few hundred fled to Thailand, precisely because they see no future. But for me, personally, we should not give up hope.

If there is a young couple who tell you they are thinking of leaving, do you discourage them from going?

Yes I would. Because I think they also have very simple ideas, just as you have these migrants coming to Europe, crossing the Mediterranean. They have an idea that things will be very easy once they go abroad. I would never advise anybody to do that. There have been extreme cases, where people have been threatened for various reasons, where we have supported them, as individuals to seek refuge. There are other examples of enlightened Muslims, who have spoken against extremism... 

I remember when Osama Bin Laden was still alive and was considered a hero, and he declared a Jihad against all the Americans, and all non-Muslims, and there was a good imam who gave a very good speech, a very good talk, explaining what Jihad really means, and he said this is not Jihad, only a legitimate authority can declare Jihad and you have to be very clear who the enemy is, and he gave very good, logical reasons. Within a week he was killed by a suicide bomber. So it is not just a question of being threatened. Most sensible people, moderate people, who want to live peaceful lives, regardless of their religion, at the moment, are under threat in Pakistan.

Is moving to India an option?

A number of Hindus have considered that option, they would feel more welcome there, especially with the present government in India.

So your family is from Goa, do you trace your history to the presence of the Portuguese in Goa? Were your ancestors converted by the Portuguese?

I wouldn't know exactly. They say that when the Portuguese arrived the Franciscans were already in Goa. So it is not as simple as that. Because Christianity was, for sure, already there since the second century, lower down in Kerala.

They say they found a cross identical to the St. Thomas cross in Goa recently. There is no historical evidence, but they say that St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew went to that coastal area. The whole area was a port, and a port brings all sorts of people together. There were Armenian Christians who were traders, Christians from Persia, and other parts, who travelled this coastal area. And usually in a coastal area you get a mixture of different kinds of people. 

So it is not very clear at what point Christianity arrived. It certainly developed much more when the Portuguese arrived, it became much stronger. 

Is there a memory of the first conversion in your family?

Because we were away from Goa, and even for me Goa is nothing more than a tourist spot, although I do have first cousins there, much of my family is in different parts of the World. Canada, a brother settled in Sweden, so really I have been away from my roots since birth.

We hear so many appeals from the Middle East, Iraq, Syria, from Patriarchs, Archbishops, for help. But what exactly can we do, for example, to help the Pakistani Christians?

If you are talking about financial help, I would say you are already doing it, through Aid to the Church in Need. I am not here to collect funds, but to create awareness, at the invitation of ACN. 

You are on the ground, you see how the money is spent and the effects of donations made here...

Definitely, in Pakistan, Aid to the Church in Need has been a very good benefactor for many years, building churches, convents, the education of seminarians for the priesthood. Any other pastoral needs, ACN has been there to help us and they still help us! 

As for the really big needs in Syria and Iraq, we pray to God that we don't reach a situation like that.

When you hear, in Pakistan, that people are praying for you. Does that help?

Yes. I was very moved yesterday when I went to Guimarães. The faith of the people, a living faith, and also the concern, the special prayers, with banners which depicted persecution. I recognized the scenes in two of them, and there were others from Iraq, Syria, Nigeria as well.

So the prayers and the sincerity of the people who assured us that they would continue praying, is something very moving, which I take back with me, to our people. 

The Archbishop and yours truly  (Edgar Sousa/Renascença)