This is in reference to a blog post that I came across moments ago. There is a blogger who finds it preposterous that the Chinese and Indian Christians, who despite being unable to string a proper sentence in our national language, would vehemently defend the use of a certain A-word in the national language editorials. He goes on to conjecture that behind this rally is a veiled sinister motive on the Church’s part.

I have decided not to post my comments in his blog as I know the trouble that have arisen from blog comments. Furthermore, this is a rather sensitive issue that could raise the ire of his angry (possibly similarly misled) readers. I am not trying to stoke any fires, for I myself am no religious zealot with sufficient knowledge. I simply aim to clarify from my point of view as a regular Catholic.

I am already aware of this conspiracy which has caused fear in certain communities. I can quite safely consider it a conspiracy, at least when it comes to my church (a catholic church). The current nature of the Catholic Church practices provides little basis for this conspiracy accusations. That said, I cannot speak for other churches and if ever it was true, the extent of it.

As a non-Christian, this blogger in question is probably unaware of the differences of practices between various churches and the unlikelihood of the Catholic Church’s involvement. Perhaps because of that, he seems to have linked the Catholic Church’s A-word issue and the conversion conspiracy together in his acrimonious blog post.

Here is my response…

First of all, cool down.

Second of all, I think you may need some clarification.

The church in question that is embroiled in this issue is basically the Catholic Church, one of which publishes the newspaper The H-.
The H- is a multilingual section that includes English (mostly), Chinese, Tamil and surprise surprise, Bahasa Malaysia. Some of you may be quick to jump into conclusion that it is aimed at converting the lot of you. But have you forgotten of the non-Muslim bumiputeras? The Sabahan/Sarawakian/Orang Asli? They exist too, you know. And anyone could guess that their language command in BM is the strongest. Apparently they use the A-word when praying, hence explaining the newspaper’s usage of that word in its articles. Sorry to burst your bubble, but editorials in the national language are for their benefit and not yours.

I am not a religious academic and I’ll leave it to them to debate on the right to use the word. But what bothers me is that you insinuate that the motive behind its usage is mass conversion.

One other thing you should know is that the Catholic church is comparatively passive when it comes to converting non-Christians. Even activities to convert the Chinese and Indians aren’t many as compared to other churches. All my years growing up as a Catholic, seldom was there a concrete mission to set out to convert the non-Christians, much less to convert the lot of you.

I have heard of rumours of conversion attempts by secretly making people drink our ‘holy water’, and I cringe at the ridiculousness of it. Holy water is used to bless a person and does not possess magical powers. To utilise it to trick a person into conversion would be sacrilegious and bordering on witchcraft. When I read about the news of fake SMSes of a mass conversion service which turns out to be a First Holy Communion (a rite of passage for young Catholics) service, I shake my head in disbelief.

I really would like to know what is the basis of your strong unwavering conviction that we are out to get you?