Cartoon steals show at Latin-rite bishops' meeting

ALWAYE, India -- A bishop's cartoon about the status of laity in the church was a thought-provoking attraction at the annual plenary of India's Latin-rite prelates.

The cartoon by Holy Cross Bishop Stephen Rotluanga of Aizawl, posted on a wall near the media desk, depicted laity riding a tortoise, and priests and bishops riding a bullock cart in an age of supersonic speed and high technology.

The laity are shown demanding "justice" and pleading with the bishops to "come down from the pedestal and care" for them. The priests, on the other hand, are shown as asking the laity "not to disturb bishops." One bishop is seen reminding the laity that they are only "a consultative body."

The cartoon depicts "the real situation of the church," remarked Antony John, a journalist who attended a news conference at the conclusion of the Jan. 4-9 plenary of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India, the national episcopal body for Latin-rite prelates.

The church leaders held their annual meeting at St. Joseph's Pontifical Seminary in Alwaye, Kerala state, 1,600 miles south of New Delhi.

Many people initially presumed a seminarian had sketched the cartoon. "Who did this?" asked seminary rector Fr. Joseph Etturthil on the next to last day of the plenary. A seminarian standing nearby answered, "A bishop from Assam." Another seminarian said the bishop who drew the cartoon put it on display on the first day of the plenary.

A copy of the cartoon was not made available.

When visiting media persons requested interviews with Rotluanga, they were told the prelate had already left. He is based in Aizawl, capital of Mizoram, a northeastern Indian state that is a southern neighbor of Assam, the largest of the region's seven states.

Regulars at the bishops' meetings know that Rotluanga, 54, produces sketches and cartoons of the meetings he attends.

"If [the bishops' conference] prints this cartoon and puts it up in every parish and bishop's house, that would be better than all these statements," said John, holding up a statement the bishops issued on the final day of the meeting.

The "church leaders might not have noticed the writing on the wall," he punned.

--UCA News

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