Sebastian Kappen

Father Sebastian Kappen S.J.

Sebastian Kappen (4 January 1924, Kodikulam, Kerala (India) - 30 November 1993, Bangalore, India), was a renowned Indian Jesuit priest and Theologian.

Formation and studies

Born in a traditional family of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, Kappen entered the Society of Jesus at the age of 20 (in 1944), and was ordained a priest on the 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. This was a time when Marxism was growing in influence in his home state of Kerala, in India.

Away from scholasticism, and its essentialism, he found in the Marxian tools of social analysis effective instruments to understand how countless people get alienated from their true freedom and lose their right to contribute to the wellbeing of society.

Evolving thought and action

Henceforth, Freud, 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. Healing and wholeness are found in the person of Jesus, the Son of God.

His theological stances evoked strong criticism in traditional circles of the Church. In 1972 Kappen moved out of Jesuit large institutions and started living among the poor wherever he was posted: in Cochin, and later in Trivandrum, Madras and Bangalore as well. Though attempting regularly to bring him back to regular Jesuit community life, his superiors were understanding enough to let him adopt a life-style more conducive to his creative writing. His locus theologicus had necessarily to be the people, and particularly the poor.

His studies were geared towards transformative social action in India. This led him to an investigation into the liberative and humanizing potential of the original teachings of the historical Jesus (hence his preference for the Gospel of Mark) as well as of Indian traditions, particularly the tradition of religious dissent represented by the Buddha and the medieval Bhakti Movement. He has written and lectured extensively on the cultural restructuring of Indian society.

Ever critical of systems, structures and institutions, Kappen’s search was leading him beyond denominational and religious affiliations or political ideology. No political, religious or economic system was absolute: they are all to be valued in the measure they serve the people. He was not to be prisoner of a party and its ideology, not even of a religious one. His yardstick was the freedom of the living God of Jesus; that was also his faith and spirituality.

As could be expected the stand he took for more responsible freedom and less institutional conventionality in Church and society brought him in conflict with the catholic hierarchy.

In 1977, he published Jesus and Freedom, with an introduction by the Belgian priest and professor at the Louvain University François Houtart. The book came under official Church scrutiny. Kappen responded with a pamphlet entitled Censorship and the Future of Asian Theology. He wrote:

“I write with responsibility. There can be defects or errors in my work. I am not infallible. Responsible thinkers and scholars the world over could judge and sift my work. In public discussions we can help each other and learn from one another. That is how truth grows in history: through a social process, and not through secret censorship”.

No further action was taken by Church authorities on this matter.

Kappen had been visiting professor to the Pontifical Faculty of Theology (Pune), Vidyajyoti College of Theology (Delhi), The Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium) and Maryknoll Seminary (New York).

From the late 1980s he started having heart problems. He stopped smoking. He had also to slow down his intellectual pursuits. He was particularly incensed by the senseless bombing of Iraq’s people during the gulf war of 1990-1991: a reaction typical of a man often genuinely angry at the sight of injustices committed against innocent civilians. This brought about, according to some, the serious heart crisis that ultimately led to the attack that carried him away on the 30 November 1993. Kappen died in Bangalore, but his body was brought back to Calicut where he is buried.

Kappen's Unpublished Poem

WHAT THE THUNDER SAYS

Abstract: According to the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, once human beings, gods, and demons approached Prajapati, their father and teacher, with the request that they be instructed. To humans he said Da, Meaning data, give; to the gods he said Da, meaning damyata, control yourselves; to the demons he said the same Da, meaning dayathvam, be compassionate. The Upanishadic seer comments that the same massage is repeated to men and women by the heavenly voice of thunder: Da, Da, Da. The three categories of beings mentioned are best understood as three types of human beings.

(Written and Sent in 1984 by Fr. Kappen to Mr. O. M. George, Jwala, Vazhakkulam)

Da, data, give

In the beginning was man

And man was desire.

The desire that desired was not yet conscious,

having neither form nor name,

welling up from the fathomless deeps

where spirit lay dormant in flesh.

Nor had what desire desired name or form,

beings no more than a void of fullness.

Desire then became aware of itself,

aware of the world around,

desiring this and that,

desiring to have more, to know more, to be more.

Desire brought this our world into being

and narrated itself into history.

History is the story of man's passion

for the not-yet-born, the not-yet-made.

History is the human caravan on the march

in search of the longed-for land.

Kill desire,

and the caravan comes to a stop.

Desire fell, when it took

means for the end,

having for being,

fission for fusion.

Desire, estranged, fashioned mine and thine,

ever seeking to make thine mine.

Desiring to enlarge the sphere of the mine,

the whites colonized the Black,

the brain colonized the brawn,

the phallus colonized the yoni.

Thus did the human fold back on itself,

like a snake eating its own tail,

like a mother sucking her own breasts,

in Narcissistic self-loving.

Thus was opened the way

to chaos and dissolution.

Still the heavens thunder:

Da, data, give.

Let your desiring be a giving;

let your taking be a bestowing.

Blessed are those who give;

more blessed those for whom

being is being-for-others,

being is being-given away.

Take not what is not given,

give to him who asks.

The measure you give

is the measure you will receive.

Damyata, control yourself

Man is heir to the violence of aeons,

when life fed on decay and death.

Down in the dark abyss of his being

the ocean rumbles,

the lion roars,

the serpent hisses.

Conceived in the violence of sex,

born in the violence of a primal rupture,

he ends his days in the violence of death.

There is a violence inherent in all striving,

premiss to all growing and expanding.

No moulding of new forms

without destroying the old.

The ploughman must breach the tellurian hymen;

the gardener must prune the innocent sapling;

the carpenter must fell the living tree

and ply his tool to the yielding wood.

stones must be broken before monuments can rise:

all creation is a groaning in travail.

But beware of all violence that ends in death;

beware of all violence that spells violation.

You violate the earth when you plough it up

to sow your bombs and plant your missiles.

You violate your kind when you bend their wills

to your own will lusting for power.

You violate your SELF

when you snuff out the flame within,

when you smother the surge of life and love.

Hearken hence to the voice of thunder:

Da, damyata,

control yourself.

Let not violence mate with desire to beget death;

let violence mate with desire to beget life.

Let all violence be ensouled with love

and be handmaid to wholeness of life.

Carpenters control their timber;

and he holy control their soul.

Deny yourself, son of Man,

take up your cross and follow him

who has gone before thee.

Dayathvam, be compassionate

But why control oneself? Because

the master and the slave are one,

the teacher and the taught are one,

the hangman and the hung are one,

the moulder and moulded are one:

one seamless garment,

one human continuum,

one plasma, one flesh, one blood,

we are one before we are many.

And why give at all, Because

the giver and the taker are one,

the rich and the poor are one,

the seamless garment,

one human continuum,

one plasma, one flesh, one blood,

we are one before we are many.

So the heavens thunder:

Da, dayathvam,

Be Compassionate.

Feel with the earth your mother,

Desire then became aware of itself,

aware of the world around,

desiring this and that,

desiring to have more, to know more, to be more.

       Desire brought this our world into being

and narrated itself into history.

History is the story of man's passion

for the not-yet-born, the not-yet-made.

History is the human caravan on the march

in search of the longed-for land.

       Kill desire,

and the caravan comes to a stop.

Desire fell, when it took

means for the end,

having for being,

fission for fusion.

Desire, estranged, fashioned mine and thine,

ever seeking to make thine mine.

Desiring to enlarge the sphere of the mine,

the whites colonized the Black,

the brain colonized the brawn,

the phallus colonized the yoni.

Thus did the human fold back on itself,

like a snake eating its own tail,

like a mother sucking her own breasts,

in Narcissistic self-loving.

Thus was opened the way

to chaos and dissolution.

Still the heavens thunder:

Da, data, give.

Let your desiring be a giving;

let your taking be a bestowing.

Blessed are those who give;

more blessed those for whom

being is being-for-others,

being is being-given away.

Take not what is not given,

give to him who asks.

The measure you give

is the measure you will receive.

Damyata, control yourself

Man is heir to the violence of aeons,

when life fed on decay and death.

Down in the dark abyss of his being

the ocean rumbles,

the lion roars,

the serpent hisses.

Conceived in the violence of sex,

born in the violence of a primal rupture,

he ends his days in the violence of death.

There is a violence inherent in all striving,

premiss to all growing and expanding.

No moulding of new forms

without destroying the old.

The ploughman must breach the tellurian hymen;

the gardener must prune the innocent sapling;

the carpenter must fell the living tree

and ply his tool to the yielding wood.

stones must be broken before monuments can rise:

all creation is a groaning in travail.

But beware of all violence that ends in death;

beware of all violence that spells violation.

You violate the earth when you plough it up

to sow your bombs and plant your missiles.

You violate your kind when you bend their wills

to your own will lusting for power.

You violate your SELF

when you snuff out the flame within,

when you smother the surge of life and love.

Hearken hence to the voice of thunder:

Da, damyata,

control yourself.

Let not violence mate with desire to beget death;

let violence mate with desire to beget life.

Let all violence be ensouled with love

and be handmaid to wholeness of life.

Carpenters control their timber;

and he holy control their soul.

Deny yourself, son of Man,

take up your cross and follow him

who has gone before thee.

Dayathvam, be compassionate

But why control oneself? Because

the master and the slave are one,

the teacher and the taught are one,

the hangman and the hung are one,

the moulder and moulded are one:

one seamless garment,

one human continuum,

one plasma, one flesh, one blood,

we are one before we are many.

And why give at all, Because

the giver and the taker are one,

the rich and the poor are one,

the seamless garment,

one human continuum,

one plasma, one flesh, one blood,

we are one before we are many.

So the heavens thunder:

Da, dayathvam,

Be Compassionate.

Feel with the earth your mother,

feel with the human kind,

Be a womb to the world being born;

bear each the other's passion;

that the morrow might see a risen earth

and a humanity made human.

Hate is not conquered by hate:

hate is conquered by love:

This is a law eternal.

Always treat others

as you would like them to treat you:

This is the law and the prophets.

feel with the human kind,

Be a womb to the world being born;

bear each the other's passion;

that the morrow might see a risen earth

and a humanity made human.

Hate is not conquered by hate:

hate is conquered by love:

This is a law eternal.

Always treat others

as you would like them to treat you:

This is the law and the prophets.

Writings in English

• Jesus and Freedom, Orbis Books, New York, 1977.
• Marxian Atheism, 1983.
• Jesus and Cultural Revolution; an Asian Perspective, 1983.
• Liberation Theology and Marxism, 1986.
• The Future of Socialism and Socialism of the Future, Bangalore, 1992.

Writings in Malayalam

• Vswäsathilninnu Viplavathilèkku (From Faith to Revolution),1972.
• Marxian Darsśnathinu Orämukham (An Introduction to the Philosophy of Marx), 1989
• Pravachanam Prathisamskruthi (Prophecy and Counterculture),1992.
• Akraistavanäya Yèśuviné Thèdi (In Search of the Non-Christian Jesus), 1999 (posthumous).

Posthumous publications

• Tradition Modernity Counterculture, 1994.
• Hindutva and Indian Religious Traditions, 2000.
• Divine Challenge and Human Response, 2001.
• Jesus and Society, ISPCK, Delhi, 2002.
• Jesus and Culture, ISPCK, Delhi, 2002.
• Towards a Holistic Cultural Paradigm, 2003.

Bibliography

in English

• Philip Mathew and Ajit Murickan (ed), Religion, Ideology and counterculture; Essays in honour of S.Kappen, Bangalore, 1987.

in Malayalam

• Prathi-samskruthiyilekku (Counterculture Thoughts of Fr. Sebastian Kappen), Manusham Publications, Ettumanoor, 2008.

External links

• Sebastian Kappen