Catholic Malayalam Actresses

[Sunil Martin]

There is an interesting observation about the increasing trend of catholic/christian actresses in the malayalam movie "industry".Rimmy Tomy,Reema Kallumkal and Ann Augustine are some of the examples.[Jomol who claimed that she was a Jesus Youth!!!]

Traditionally we discourage women and /men to be become part of such industries.When I was in Pune, many north Indian men thinks that christian women are inherently immoral owing to the weird idea they are conceiving from western movies.Although the church is aware off and voices her objection of the increasing moral distortion of the image of the church in the bollywood movies; the trend still continues.The sad truth is that  these negatives cues become part of conscience formation among teenagers and even affect the way they interact with christian women who in striking contrast,maintain a superior morale(in many cases). While theatric  arts need to encouraged  to convey good values to the society along with acceptable entertainment. 

 But a general web search shows that this trend points towards the "infection of excessive secularization" in the rich soil nourished by the blood of St.Thomas.Now the aforesaid trend may be a tip in the ice-burg.Please watch,pray and respond as we can nip these tendencies in the bud before it becomes an issue which may make Christians insufficiently sensitive to the needs of the spirit and  and God.

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With best regards

Sunil

 

"Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak." -Mathew 26:41

[Richie Dow]

This is indeed an interesting observation. I did not realize that non-Christian Indians view Christian women as inherently immoral due to Christianity's association with the West. This is ironic, since Christianity is from the East, and reached India both before Islam and before Christianity even reached most of the "West."

The fact is that Christianity, and specifically, Catholicism, has existed in India for almost 2000 years. The characterization of Christianity as "Western" or "alien" is a deliberate attempt by non-Christian groups to marginalize the Christian peoples of India.

If indeed these Christian/Catholic actresses are acting in movies which are against the morality of the Church, or portray Christianity in a slanted way, it is a problem. There are all sorts of subtle ways movies act against the truth of the Church--pretty much any romance movie is utterly misguided, and Bollywood gets a lot worse these days...

Outside of Kerala, Christian actresses have already sullied their name. There are plenty of Catholic actresses from Mangalore and Goa (Konkani women) who make no effort to support morality through their careers. And probably we are also familiar with this Jacqueline Fernandez, a Sri Lankan woman who has recently come to fame and also is almost certainly Catholic. (Perhaps it is no surprise that she was college-educated in Australia....)

Bottom line, the women of the St. Thomas Christian community need to respond the misconceptions of secular India in a way that is both authentically Catholic and authentically Indian. This includes "yes" responses, such as connecting with specifically Indian spirituality, and living a virtuous life. This also requires "no" responses, such as not viewing movies, whether Malayalam, Bollywood, or Hollywood, which misrepresent Christianity or moral life, and especially, avoiding American clothes, which have no connection to Indian culture at all. (Isn't it funny that Indian people wear American clothes, but American people have no interest in Indian clothes at all?) Indeed, all inroads of Westernization must be resisted by Indian Christians. For if a culture which denies the very existence of spiritual life begins to dominate one of the most spiritually-based cultures in all of human history, that would be an incredible tragedy.

Since you are an Malayalee Catholic, why don't you try writing to these actresses, Sunil? :D

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Real love is demanding. I would fail in my mission if I did not clearly tell you so. -- Pope John Paul II

[Sunil Martin]

Thank you Richie,

I am surely planning to write about this and similar issues which are silently invading the Christian community.I will speak about it when I visit India. Many of them you already mentioned in your letter.

The sad truth is that "some" protestant churches are already aware of this than the Latin Rite Catholic Churches in the North.The secularization is worse in some north Indian churches than in the west.The church to some extend yields to these forces for eg: In pune many non christian young professionals attend X-mas mass because the church kind of "offers" a "kiss [intimate] chaos" after the end of the Christmas mass for more than 3 min.They kiss only young girls.Many old parents leave not even with out greeting.The parish priest was like.."O I know but this is how it is here". But there is  a striking observation that  girls who covers their head are  left alone.

At Boston they say "Saw something say something" this is true not only for security threats but also for spiritual threats that we are supposed to be sensitive to.I appreciate Archbishop Chaput as he says (about pro-life  "If you are not speaking up people will die"  

"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men" Matthew 5:13 

With best regards

Sunil Martin

with best regards

Sunil

 

"Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins." -1Peter 4:8