India’s Catholic Religious should involve themselves in politics for marginalized people and help build a just society, says a leading Catholic nun.

The Church’s tendency to shun politics “is not good” in the modern world, says Sister Smitha Vembilly, who heads the Kerala-based Sisters of the Destitute congregation.

However, the nun, on a visit to her houses in Delhi, told UCA News on Feb. 16, her call is “not for direct involvement in party politics.”

Religious should “speak out for the poor and stand with them on issues that concern them,” said the 54-year old nun, who has worked in Delhi’s slums.

She cited the example of communists in Kerala, who formed the world’s first democratically elected communist government in 1957. They succeeded because they stood with the poor and marginalized, the Superior General asserted.

Religious should “read the minds of the poor” and “work with them” on social issues, said the nun who has a master’s degree in social work. She said such involvement could help the people take political action that would bring about policy changes to benefit the poor.

Sister Vembilly said her aim is not political revolution. The call is to “plant values of the Gospel” in society aiming at a “just and peaceful society.”

Church institutions, most of them managed by the Religious, should be made “more available” to the poor. “We should set apart some 30-40 percent of our facilities for the poor. But that is not happening,” the nun said.

The Church in India has been institution-oriented over the past five decades and the “outlook has begun to change only recently. Yet we are not stretching our arms fully for the poor,” she said.

Her congregation, which manages some 15 hospitals and dispensaries in the country, plans to set part some 30 percent of its services for the poor. “We will gradually increase it,” Sister Vembilly said.

The nun said some 1,566 nuns of her congregation are mostly involved in managing 50 houses meant for the mentally sick and destitute women and children.

Sister Vembilly also said the “biggest challenge” for the Religious is the “falling quality” of vocations and changing values among people. Being poor is no longer seen as a value, she said adding that “more people look for power and positions and lack the willingness to totally surrender to God’s will.”

The nun wants Church attitudes to also change. “There is a lot of criticism and discouragement” toward nuns who venture out into frontier missions for the poor.

The quality of service women Religious get largely depends on how the Church “treats them”, she said, adding that, women Religious experience a lack of respect and equality in the Church.

“If priests are treating sisters like servants, what support and respect will we get from lay people?” she asked.

Source: Nun leader calls for political involvement (UCAN)

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