Perspectief 2018-41

Perspectief 66 Sergio Targa sj. well. Fr. Germano Antonio, appointed parish priest in Borodol in 1978 first with Fr. Colom- bara and then with Fr. Torresani started an aggressive social campaign against the poisoning of cows and the eating of carrion. It was believed in fact that without discarding these traditional habits, the Christians of Borodol would never be able to discard their Muchi label particularly in front of the surrounding non-Christian society. The last 20 years or so have witnessed the growth of the Catholic Church in Khulna with local priestly ordinations even among Christians coming from Rishi background. This of course has been a matter of great pride for all of them and for us Xaverians as well. To- gether with the growth of local clergy these last two decades have also witnessed a sort of restructuring of the Xaverian presence. This in practice has meant a withdrawal from places of responsibilities, and regretfully, from the actual field of mission. The Rishi mission although still in theory remaining high in the Xaverian priorities in the last years has suf- fered quite a lot for lack of interest and personnel. Fr. Germano is right now the only Xaverian working among the Rishi. His life time commitment to the Rishi cause is undoubt- edly praise worthy. 4. The snake and the frog The above sketchy depiction of the history of the complex relationship between Catholic Church and Rishi people can also be read as the history of two intertwined stories. The first, the most obvious one, the story of Rishi conversion to Christianity, and the second, the less obvious one, the story of the Catholic Church's conversion to the Rishi cause. If it is true that in the intention of the Rishi respondent's, the snake of the metaphor mentioned above was the Rishi group and the frog represented instead the Church, it is also true that the metaphor can be read the other way round: the Church may represent the snake and the Rishi group, the frog. Often missionaries had lamented the lack of a pure religious intentionality in the Rishi approach to Christianity. But what about the missionaries, is it not true that the missionaries as well had a not so hidden agenda as far as Rishi were concerned? The Church did not make a positive choice of the Rishi until quite recently. The encounter in the beginning was casually determined by the realisation that Rishi peo- ple were open to the Gospel. Nobody, apparently, cared to ask the why of such openness. If another group had been open to it, the missionaries would have directed their care