For quite some time, certain misguided people have been trying to tarnish the good name of DIVINE RETREAT CENTRE (DRC), MURINGOOR, KERALA. Some people may wonder how such extensive works of charity can be undertaken in our State of Kerala without foreign funding.This is part of an organized effort to tarnish the good name of DRC and trying to portray Christians of Kerala bad.
HAS ANYONE OR ANY COMMUNITY IN OUR STATE HAD OR WILL BE ABLE TO DO AS MUCH AS WE (CHRISTIANS IN KERALA) DO IN CHARITY AND SERVICES TO THE SOCIETY AT LARGE. I BET NO BODY HAS DONE AS MUCH AS WE DO OR NO BODY HAS ANY COURAGE TO LOOK AT CAHRITY ON THIS LARGE SCALE. I REQUEST ALL TO BE VIGILANT ON CERTAIN NEWS PAPAERS WHO PUBLISH ONLY ONE SIDE OF THE STORY WITH THE HELP OF A FANATIC POLITICAL PARTY � DON'T BE A VICTIM OF FANATIC PROPAGANDA.
1.Over 10 million pilgrims have attended retreats at Divine Retreat Centre since 1990.In a week there are more than 15000 devotees from all the religions, denominations attend the retreats there. One point to be noted is people look at retreat in our society mostly when they have problems or when there health condition gets worse and had been send back by hospitals. Sometime they are being send there by their own family and sometimes dumped there. In 17 years existence considering the physical condition of the people who gather there the numbers in death are not mysterious.
2.About the money, certainly it comes from our own pocket and we are not living in a state where some one can freely drop money from air. Divine charges close to Rs 250 ( based on memory of what I paid in 1999) for a one week retreat. Currently there is a huge debt with the banks. I attened the retreat in 1999 and had seen the physical condition of many people who attend there. I have also seen many old sick people being dumped there by their family from all religions. 3.It takes lot of effort and service to build something which offers solace to so many people and let the rules of the land takes its actions and am sure it will be a learning for many who works in charity to have their process more aligned with the various rules and regulations in more paper politically driven Kerala .
4. My humble opinion is Divine Retreat Centre is something which all of us need to be proud of. Dont make yourself as a vicitm of fanatic propaganda. I would say we should look at the process and improve and make it more transparent.
5. 10 million people in 17 years is not a joke. It has brought solace to so many people and do we have anything else to claim which brought this changes to people who are unwanted in society.
6. Even religious fanatics don't claim Divine Retreat Centre making any conversions. Our population is only reducing but doing such a service for a large section of people without much controversies is really commendable. Remember the history of Divine is 17 years.
7. When did this controversies started coming out? The organized effort of fanatics against the community in the last few years is going spill bounds. I might not be surprised, if we are going to find out during investigations that few fanatics got into these and it is part of an organized effort to undermine the services of church.
8. No body has question our services to society at large in different areas by one or two incidents. There are many mistakes from our leadership in policies and other things and on transparency. I think the people who work in these areas need to understand that there are organized fanatic efforts to undermine their services and they need to look for due diligence in laws, process and transparency. I know this is quite a difficult task to monitor as 70% of the people whom you work with had a very bad past. 9. I also advocate to remind the priests and others involved in these kind of services that do keep in mind that you are being watched. No matter what all services you are doing to society, however great it is no body is above the law of the land. There should be process defined and transparency. You are accountable for what you do how ever great it is.
10. Divine Retreat Centre was the first in Kerala to take the initiative to accept, provide shelter, and care for AIDS patients till the very end of their lives. 10.DRC is never going to close down. Kummanam Rajasekharan has been day dreaming about that for last 10-15 years and that's only going to be a day dream for him. It has support of millions of people from different religions 11.About celibacy, womanising and morality. My opinion is these are just rumors if there was something concrete the campaign we could have witnessed might be different. Out of nothing people are successful in firing this many shots on air and if something had happened in reality there could have been many show cases just like what has happened in Vithura or Suryanelli scandals. One reason for putting these kind of blame is the example set forth by our CM on how best you can use these kind of issues to build a credible base for your fake malign campaign.
12.BJP statements are just pure politics. HUF is an arm trying to built some issues to gather attention of people for their on gains.
13.The point to be noted is increasing trend of certain sections in few news papers and news channels joining hands with religious fanatics. This has been happening for some time in the past to portray all community as evil and what surprises me is that many one sided articles got published for the next day when the FIR was filed late night. Today if you look many links to those one sided articles you can observe that most of them are not working. Media also completely ignored the statements from DRC on the articles published. 14.Learning for those invloved in charity is due diligence to various laws of the land. Keep the house in order. Keep the accounts open. Its hard when you work on masses and considering the limited resources but there is no work around for that.
Let us concentrate more on what we are supposed to do than controversies. My Conclusion There is a concerted effort to tarnish the imagine of Divine for quite some time. The false propaganda has even misguided many people even belivers. Now, people are brining up the so called unnatural death cases at Divine. Why should not be deaths at Divine when AIDS patients reach Divine as a last resort as they are being negleted by the society at large, their familes and friends. These victims are not from one Religion or region. One has to think of the situation when he has no place to go in his distress. Divine accepts everyone as Sons of God and give them peace, shelter and food and after all prepare them to accept a peaceful death. Who on earth does this kind of work in the world? I challenge the people with arms to show me one. Not only the AIDS patients but all the hopeless critical patients reach there as a last resort. So death was natural at Divine. So this means Divine has nothing to hide from anybody. It is high time that people at the helm realise the reality in good spirit for the interest of the mankind. Finally, let us stand by the side of our Priests, Religious Sisters, Lay Leaders, etc. The Priests and Nuns, who work for the betterment of the faithful, should not be targeted for any conspirancy. They are to be congratulated for their Vocation and dedication. When Jesus was crucified, the whole crowd was criying to crucify HIM. But, the truth was JESUS WAS INNOCENT.
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-Vijay, USA, USA
