Why Agnes of God must be seen by all

Pope Francis is awesome. Can we all just collectively agree to that? He gives you that nice, warm, fuzzy feeling every time you see him on TV. Sooraj Barjatiya warm and fuzzy. "Pre Abs" Shah Rukh warm and fuzzy. They should rebrand Santa Claus as a clean shaven Argentinean. I just cannot get enough of the guy. I follow him on Twitter and Facebook and eagerly await him to hit Snapchat. You know that's going to be epic. Another shared post of Pope Francis hugging a poor, sick, mentally ill person on the street? Yes, please! And he cares for the environment! He made climate change an important cause of the church! How awesome is that!? Priests all over the world are probably grumbling trying to find a relevant passage in the Bible to go with that sermon.

Conservative Catholics aren't too thrilled with him though. He says, “Who am I to judge?” on the subject of gay priests. He's the Pope! He has to judge! But he's an old school (Er, New Testament school) guy. He asks people to cast the first stone. He turns the other cheek. He loves the poor. He loves one another as Jesus loves him. Judgement is low on his priorities.

And you know it isn't an act. He makes it look so easy to love. So effortless. He must have been in the hugging and caring racket for decades back in his native Argentina. I did a little bit of reading. Not real research, mind you. Just some casual Wikipedia skimming over and it turns out Francis had it tough in his pre Pope and pre Francis days. Turns out he was called Jorge Bergoglio back then. That's tough as it is. On top of that he was provincial superior of the Society of Jesus of Argentina at the time of Argentina's Dirty War in the 1970s.

At the time, Bergoglio had little time to enforce Dogma and had to worry about protecting civilians and his clergymen from the Argentinean dictatorship. And he supposedly harbored enemies of the government in his Church to protect them and even helped many escape. Turns out though, the business of standing up to the dictatorship is a little more complicated... and scary. Bergoglio didn't openly condemn the dictatorship. They might have retaliated in dictatorship-like ways. But it gets worse, as a case was filed against Bergoglio for selling out two priests to the government. Yeah, I know. I got depressed just typing it. The case was dropped eventually but Bergoglio never shook it off. To this day, there are some who question if he did enough to oppose the dictatorship.

It was a difficult time with difficult decisions to make. Situations like that, there's always more you could have done, always someone else you could have saved. No matter the divine status, you're reduced to a man in an impossible position. And maybe the good he did then should count for more than the good he does now, even if it isn't as picture perfect... or share worthy.

The production of “Agnes of God” by Poor Box Productions tells the story of two women in a difficult position, one of them a Mother Superior played by Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal. The play is loosely based on an unfortunate true story of the baby that was killed after being born to a young nun. The play adds twists and turns and a shocking resolution but at the very end, you realise both women are working in the absolute best interests of the young, mentally scarred nun.

At the meeting with Maharashtra's minister of minority affairs on October 5, the day of the show, I got the chance to hear the arguments of several different groups who had objections to the play. The common theme being “It shows us in a bad light”. In such a trying and, once again, true situation to depict the Mother Superior as doing everything to protect her young, defenseless, possibly mentally ill nun... how could you possibly depict that character in a better light?

Yes, the ad campaign was unfortunate. A tasteless and misleading hook with religious terminology was used to grab eyeballs. And while the producer Kaizad Kotwal has made it clear that he was not directly responsible for that particular campaign, he has promised that it won't be used again. The real issue comes with the opposition to the play itself and those that would still have it banned when really they should be celebrating it. The real heroics of the clergy are the responses to impossible situations they are put in across the world, facing impoverished conditions, oppressive regimes and deadly warzones. India too, is a place where the clergy and nuns have faced unspeakable atrocities and we should applaud the very human sacrifices they make. Leave the fairy tales to the Pope. He's earned it.