“politicised priest”.

A politician in inverted commas? No I am not a politician. And not even one in inverted commas. Perhaps you could say a “politicised priest”. (excerpt from this article).

this article (interview with jesuit catholic priest, fr. oc lim) in sun2surf was dated 25 june 2004 but i came across it only a few days ago when i was reading the august catholic asian news magazine.
fr. oc lim is the editor of catholic asian news and currently he serve as acting assistant priest at the st francis xavier church in PJ. i do not know him personally nor have i met him but i do hear of him being out-spoken and sometimes controversial.

here are some interesting excerpts (in italic) from the interview (with my comments) of what fr. oc said:

theSun: Father, perhaps we could do the photo-shoot while we talk. You may want to put on your collar?
Lim: No, I will not. The Roman collar is foreign, not indigenous. Shoot me just as I am (we laugh, as I cue photographer Zulkifly Ersal, who takes position).
fr. oc lim would have approved whole-heartedly with the statue of our lady of the jubilee and the child jesus dressed in indigenous costume (kebaya and baju melayu)

Christmas is now used as a tourist attraction at state and national levels. Last year, during the national-level celebration of Christmas in Sabah, the choir was told explicitly not to sing hymns that had the word “Jesus” in them.
how sad. see how christmas had been so commercialised. even lots of christmas card now printed are ‘secular’ with bells, santa, christmas tree, sleigh, what-have-you BUT the main person whom we are all celebrating christmas for – baby jesus – is missing. our SSVP society, which print our own christmas cards, we decided to have 80% of the cards with baby jesus or the nativity scene in, and our slogan is ‘put christ back into CHRISTmas’. (don’t put an unknown X person and say ‘xmas’ ya!).

In other words, “politics” cannot be divorced from religion because many political matters, again I must insist, in the wider sense of the word, does affect religion … and what is spiritual and spiritual matters do have connotations to what is political.
how wise of fr. oc. many people though insists that religion and politics should not mix. well yes, i mean by right, it shouldn’t but let’s be realistic, it’s difficult to seperate politics from religion (no divorce!).

Under the ISA, a detainee is held without trial for 60 days. That is grossly against fundamental human rights. Now, if I am detained, if I am punished, I want to know what wrong I have done.
he’s one person who spoke up strongly against ISA.

But under the ISA, the reason usually given is “to uphold national security”. But this is a very loose term, it can mean anything, and it can be applied to any circumstance.
indeed. it applies to thier fancies and whims. to the govt. ‘to uphold national security’ means hauling up those who are against them, but of course the ‘those’ have to be opposition MPs or a non UMNOputera. like the recent bad-ruddin case… just because he is an UMNO leader, no ISA for him, he was only giving us history lesson, BUT it it is a non UMNO member, esp. non malays, quick as a lightning, he’ll be haul up under ISA… or at least given a stern warning… ask to apologise… or best of all, make those UMNOputeras jump up and down demanding this and that.

But, in 1988, the independence of the judiciary was killed with the sacking of Tun Salleh (Abbas) and other judges. Since then the judiciary started going downhill to such an extent that (today) many international contracts provide for (overseas) arbitration, something which was not that common during my years of practice.
what can i say here? everybody had been saying enough on this matter! yes yes yes, the judiciary going down the hill after the infamous sacking of tun salleh abbas.

go and read the full article. i’m sure you’ll find it interesting (and amusing too) at what fr. oc had to say.