SEBASTIAN KAPPEN
Sebastian Kappen, a
renowned Indian Jesuit priest and Theologian was born in a
traditional family of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church
on 4 January 1924 at Kodikulam in Kerala, India. Kappen entered the Society of Jesus at
the age of 20 in 1944, and was ordained a priest on 24 March 1957. He
pursued studies at the Gregorian University Rome, obtaining a doctorate
in Theology (1961)
with a thesis on Religious Alienation and Praxis according to
Marx’s Economic and
Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844.[1]
In
the Marxian tools of social analysis,
he found the effective instruments to understand how countless people get
alienated from their true freedom and lose their right to contribute to the
wellbeing of society. Since then, Marx and
the gospel of Mark became
the dialectical poles of Kappen’s thought and life, in view of liberating the
human person from hidden oppressive psychological and social forces.[2]
His theology of liberation was the result of an attempt to interpret Jesus’
Kingdom of God in the light of Marx’s Classless Society and vice versa. In this
attempt he could make substantial contribution to Marxism as well as Theology.
Later on, in an effort to overcome the limitations of liberation theology,
Kappen turned more to Indian religious traditions, especially the Buddhist.[3]
Kappen
says that the focal point of Jesus’ life was the hope that God would soon come
and usher in a new age of human fullness when the poor will take possession of
the earth, when their hunger and thirst for justice will be satisfied, when
humans everywhere will become brothers and sisters to one another, when
prisoners will be pulled down to let the inmates free, and the sorrowing will
have every tear wiped away from their eyes. But for that hope to become
reality, men and women had to cooperate, reorienting their lives in tune with
the future envisioned. Committed to the project of a future of wholeness and
freedom, Jesus had to take a stand in regard to the realities of the present.
Hence his option for “those who labor and are burdened”, meaning the
working-class and denunciation of the rich who sought to serve God and Money at
the same time; of the high priests who turned God’s temple into a market place
and a den of thieves; who paid tithes of mint and dill and cumin while
overlooking the weightier demands of justice, mercy, and good faith.[4]
The
death of Jesus on the cross was the logical outcome of his life of
confrontation and conflict with the rulers of his day. It was the cause of the
Kingdom of God that cost Jesus his life. Kappen interprets the Kingdom as man’s
“total reconciliation with nature, with one’s fellow humans, with God, and with
oneself. This is very close to Marx’s vision of a Classless Society in which
humans overcome all forms of alienation. It calls for demolishing and radically
reconstructing the prevailing socio-political organizations in line with the
demands of the Kingdom, which can be achieved through a revolution, which
Kappen defines as a planned and radical transformation of the social system.[5]
[2] Ibid
[3] Kappen, Sebastian. Divine Challenge and Human Response (Tiruvalla:
Christava Sahitya Samithy, 2001), p 7.
[5] Kappen, Sebastian. Divine Challenge and Human Response (Tiruvalla:
Christava Sahitya Samithy, 2001), p 21.
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