Page 61 - Bishop-Roch-Jubli-Malar

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meeting was most cordial as we had looked forward Eucharistic Congress, held in Madras in the late
to it for long. He went out of his way to make my thirties, characterised Bishop Roche as a
stay with him comfortable. On his own he had distinguished son of India and quoted him as

arranged with Fr. Rector that I should be allowed to having stated in another context that Christianity
address the Scholastics - a large international was not foreign to any country or culture and that it
community of budding scholars. Rarely, if at all. are was the 'swadeshi' religion of every land. How
outsiders allowed to address the Scholastics. In this much he was loyal to his religion and country could
case the pleader for the cause was a Bishop. and Fr. be inferred from the fact that the papal and the
Rector. acquiesced. The session took place after national flags flutter side by side in the sanctuary of
supper and lasted for an hour and ended as a the Tuticorin Cathedral. Next to none in his

pleasant experience for all concerned, not allegiance to his country and in his attachment to its
excepting the Bishop who was pleased: with the culture, he stood as a stout champion of India's
outcome. Why should he take such pains, advanced cultural values which should in his opinion find
in age though he was, if not for his eagerness to entry into the process of maturation of christian
create a happy feeling of fellowship and camara- ideals and life style. He would however frown on
derie, if not for the streak of nobility in him that any crude induction of purely Hindu rituals into
often found itself irrepressible! He lived a life christian liturgy in the name of 'inculturation' and
untrammelled by the restraints of parochialism and under the pretext of enriching Christianity. The
self-interest. claims of Incarnation Theology cannot be

unlimited. Thus the leadership of Bishop Roche
When Tuticorin found its place on the
transcended the boundaries of his limited
ecclesiastical map of India in 1923, the national
jurisdiction.
scene was one of turbulence over the issue of
political independence. There was widespread His was a personality that was multifaceted;
unrest all over the land. The Christian community that was capable of being at home everywhere and
by and large stood aloof, if not indifferent. The one with every one: the sick and the afflicted, the rich
to come out with a clarion call for all Christians to and the poor, the learned and the unlettered, the
join the Congress was Bishop Roche. This bold step high and the low. As the ray of the sun, passing
on his part had raised the eyebrows of some in through the prism, stands revealed in its variegated

certain quarters. He encouraged Christian leaders colours, so the personality that Bishop Roche was,
to stand for elections to enter Legislatures and stands luminous as constituted by strains of
termed them, ambassadors' for Christ in political nobility, amiability, understanding and tolerance,
forums. Felicitating him on an occasion of the supported and sustained by faith and love, true to
anniversary of his Consecration, I had written to his motto: Stella mea caritas.
him citing Bishop Rosillon of Vizagapatnam, who
"Hacc olim meminisse juvabit "
while giving the key-note address at the National

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