Fr. Maurice, the news, and going mufti

Hey everybody,

Two things can be true at once.

Take Tibet.

Tibetan people have a litany of legitimate grievances against the Chinese Communist Party, and Beijing’s human rights record in Tibet is deeply troubling, especially where freedom of religion, culture, speech, and conscience are concerned. There are ample reports of forced labor and labor trafficking from Tibet, and claims of forced sterilization and abortion in the region. These days, issues arise under Beijing’s plan for a “sinicization” of China’s peripheral territories, especially those populated by ethnic minorities.

But Tibet is not the one-dimensional Shangri-la it’s sometimes painted as by its Hollywood advocates, a magical land where gurus exist on a higher plane, waiting around to dispense wisdom one koan at a time to recently divorced Westerners making a spirit quest tour of its finest yurts.

Tibet is a real place, the center for a major branch of Buddhism, and apart from the killer scenery, the flags, and its propensity for yak meat, it has a complex and not-alogether-peaceful history, including an ironically violent history for religious minorities.

And that history brings me to Fr. Maurice Tornay.

He was an Augustinan canon — not the Pope Leo kind of Augustinian, but a different branch of the extended family