* Every nation is forced to struggle with multiculturalism as inevitable in a globalised world.
* Pedro Luis is to be situated at the hub of the 16th century encounter of Iberian Christianity with Indic cultural landscape
* The deep concerns and the lonely struggle of Pedro Luis remain silver lines. To carry that dialogue forward is our task today.
(4) Cultural Sensitivity and Social Commitment
We get an insight into the outlook of Pedro Luis from a brief narration in one letter he wrote to the General. He writes about an incident involving the uncle of the archdeacon forty years earlier: “…when he was in Cochin in the monastery of the friars of St Francis, about to get reconciled, as he was fasting without eating fish, a friar put a little of fish in a delicacy, thinking that the conversion of the entire community depended on making it eat fish. The Christian was scandalized in such a way that he went to the Serra and created such a division among us that turned into a great disaster. Because of which now, in nothing that we see of their customs, if it is not an offence to God, do we dissimulate, for thus it is a lesser evil.” Obviously he was highlighting the importance of cultural sensitivity which he found lacking in many missionaries.
He also observed the problem of money lending and its ill effect. He writes to the General that “no money lender should be given burial if he does not return the things pledged to him when they are to be returned or if he does not have them, if he does not ask for forgiveness….And many will stop being money lenders on seeing that they do not get church burial…
Significance of the Letters of Pedro Luis
Pedro Luis was a gifted and dynamic Indian missionary thanks to his rootedness in the culture of the land and his remarkable schooling in Christian missionary tradition. He was also a man with a vision and much foresight. The letters he wrote to the superiors open up a window to the dynamics and pitfalls of faith-culture encounter, especially when read in the context of post colonial studies. It would be naïve to place the letters as a mere addition to “missionary literature.”
Pedro Luis is to be situated at the hub of the 16th century encounter of Iberian Christianity with Indic cultural landscape. His is the lone native voice in that setting, and it asserts the Indian agency in the meeting of cultures. He symbolizes the hybridist of a missionary era signalling two cultures in intimate but ambivalent interactions. It was an encounter leading to dialogue with the dominant missionary culture, and resistance in the frame of cultural exchange. Pedro Luis shows how indigenous people negotiate their hybridized identities while resisting the oppressive power of the dominant culture. Language became a handy tool for him in this venture; his mastery over the language of the missionary, viz. Portuguese, was used as a powerful instrument in resisting cultural imposition, as his letters amply testify. He took pride in his facility with Indian languages, thus assuming the role of a privileged dialogue partner. Language after all s a realm of power and control, and he put it to good use; his letters were an effective literary genre in encounter and dialogue. In this process he carved out a space for the voice of the native Christian and engaged in dialogue aimed at transforming the mission context.
It is not out of place to ask what role Pedro’s Brahminic identity played in his intervention in the missionary content. We do not find him giving any importance to his caste identity in any of his letters, except while introducing himself to the superior General. However, the constant reference to him as a ‘Brahmin convert’ in missionary correspondence looks bizarre. Some writing uses Brahmane as if it is his surname. We are not sure if the missionaries considered his belonging to a literate high caste as a positive factor in admitting him. Brahmin converts were rare in those days, and most converts came from the Parava or the Mukkuva community. That no candidate from these communities or from among the Thomas Christians was found worthy to be admitted into the Society remains a fact to be explained.
In an era of neo-colonialism in various forms, the issues that confronted Pedro Luis re-emerge and challenge us afresh. Every nation is forced to struggle with multiculturalism as inevitable in a globalised world. The church today speaks more about New Evangelization than about missionary expeditions. All these bring up the questions of faith-culture encounter and dialogue again into prominence. A look back on the 16th century European Christianity’s encounter with Indic traditions, I believe, may throw some light on out struggles in the 21stcentury.
Wiki concludes his monograph on Pedro Luis admiring “how he grasped so rightly the necessity of native clergy for the pastoral care of his people and for the spreading of the faith. Besides, one feels in his letters a true love for his people and understanding of their character. He is totally open to the interests of the mission and is not afraid to make his views known at the right places.
The deep concerns and the lonely struggle of Pedro Luis remain silver lines in the attempts of Indian Christians to define their identity in encounter and dialogue. To carry that dialogue forward is our task today.
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