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COMMENTARY | Cardinal Anthony Soter Fernández, first prince of the Malaysian Catholic Church (a term reserved exclusively for cardinals) died yesterday in Kuala Lumpur at the age of 88, following an outbreak of cancer.
Fernandez will long be remembered for his discreet defiance of secular powers, which in the form of the Special Branch, descended on the Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur’s residence in Bukit Nanas in late October 1987 to arrest La Salle Anthony’s brother. Rogers under internal command. Security Act (ISA).
Rogers was one of more than 100 politicians and social activists who were drawn into the ISA network, called Operation Lalang, apparently for activities that the Special Branch deemed detrimental to national security.
Racial tensions were rising in the Malaysian capital, stemming from a narrow victory by the current prime minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, in the Umno party elections in early 1987, and heightened by a decision by the Ministry of Education to place administrators not speak Mandarin in Chinese schools.
The political environment was feverish and the ISA arrests were seen as the government’s response to put a stop to the situation before it boiled over.
To this day, suspicions persist that the situation was deliberately designed to justify the expulsion, albeit temporarily, of individuals who would draw attention to the precarious support for Mahathir within Umno.
Operation ISA under the auspices of the Home Office, which was also headed by the Prime Minister, has come to be regarded as one of the darkest chapters in the history of post-independence Malaysia.
At the time of his arrest, Brother Rogers was head of the Archdiocese’s Human Development Office, located on the premises of the Kuala Lumpur prelate’s residence.
The term “human development office” was a bombastic substitute for its earlier description, the Justice and Peace Commission.
Regimes as dictatorial as Fidel Castro’s Cuba and as authoritarian as Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore would not accept the idea that their governments could be criticized by the local church for being insufficient for the justice of which, according to Catholic social doctrine, peace was springing up.
Hence, the term “human development office”, a euphemism to appease oligarchic spirits, was preferred as a description of a church ministry to deal with issues of social justice.
Therefore, when the Special Branch officers who arrested him came to arrest Brother Rogers, they told a puzzled archbishop that his church was harboring “Marxists.” Fernández, educated in the Christian ideology that considers Marxism anathema, replied with disdain: “You do your job and we will do ours.”
It was an echo of the Christian recognition of the separate – and immiscible – kingdoms of Caesar and Christ, the temporal and the spiritual.
That recognition and the admonition to “be careful with the princes of this world” (Biblical nomenclature for “secular powers whatever”) influenced Fernández’s perspective on dealings with the government.
He politely declined the honorifics, Datuk and Tan Sri, which are normally awarded to the incumbent of the post of Catholic Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur, which he held from 1983 to 2003, and told those who asked that the titles weren’t really helping performance. of their spiritual roles.
In private, he showed that he distrusted the government’s goodwill intentions officially expressed toward the church.
Despite this skepticism, Fernández was extremely supportive of interfaith dialogue and initiatives, measures that could not achieve their healthy ends without the support and understanding of the government.
It was under the prelature of Fernández that the Catholic Church initiated the effort to form the interfaith body, the Malaysian Consultative Congress of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism, founded in 1984, to defend the right to freedom of religion which is guaranteed. by the Federation. Constitution.
The body was formed in the face of growing Islamic fundamentalism in the country with the beginning of the 1980s, following the Khomeini Revolution in Iran in 1979.
Although not noted for his academic or theological depth, Fernández was highly regarded as a pastoral prelate who was adequately described by his predecessor, the late Dominic Vendargon (incidentally, a Tan Sri) who said: “I am known as a builder of churches, Soter is a builder of people. “
There was no better testimony to the touch of his people than what he did with the makeshift collection raised at his farewell dinner after his retirement as archbishop.
He gave the total sum to the nine employees, from the gardener to the secretary, at Cardign House, the residence of the prelate.
He must have felt that the Vatican’s stipend of $ 420 a month for a retired bishop was enough for his livelihood.
TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for more than four decades.
The opinions expressed here are those of the author / contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
