New Church at Kochuthura..

Today, 23^rd July 2013, is the inauguration/dedication of a new church/mansion at Kochuthura where I was a parish priest some 25 years ago. At that time an existing church was renovated and it was that church which was demolished to have this multi crore structure for God when his very children/the poor of Yahweh don’t have a proper shelter to ‘lay down their heads!’ Coincidently Ramachandra Guha in his article on the editorial page of ‘The Hindu’ today writes while speaking on ‘What Hindus can & should be proud of’: “In a society where so many are without access to adequate education, health care and housing, where malnutrition is rife and where safety and environmental standards are violated every minute, to invest so much… in the demolition of a mosque and its replacement with a brand-new temple seemed wildly foolish, if not downright Machiavellian.”

Was Jesus not identifying with those who don’t have a roof over their heads or the ones whose roofs must be leaking especially at this downpours of the monsoon, when he said that ‘…the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head’? (Mt 8:20)

This rightly applies to this inauguration/dedication of the said church in the background of known public defecation in Karumkulam Panchayat where this village and church is located and in Thiruvananthapuram district coast where literacy is the poorest along with Malappuram, is an affront to the God who said, “I have seen the affliction of my people..., and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out… and to bring them up out… to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey…’ (Ex 3:7-8).

Listen what Paul is saying to the men of Athens: ‘The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man…” Acts17:24. Hearken to Jeremiah saying: ‘Do not trust in these deceptive words:”This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.” 7:4. [July 23, 2013]