REPORT ON THE ONE DAY STATE LEVEL PRO-LIFE SEMINAR 

ON THE THEME `CHOOSE LIFE AMIDST CULTURE OF DEATH’ 

The Department of Psychology of Rosary College of Commerce and Arts in collaboration with the Diocesan Family Service Centre, Goa, organized a one day State Level Seminar on the theme `Choose Life Amidst Culture of Death’ on Friday, 26th of November, 2010.

The Chief Guest for the inaugural function was His Grace, the Archbishop Patriarch of Goa and Daman, Most Rev. Filipe Neri Ferrão.  The other distinguished guests for the day were, the Director of the Family Service Centre, Rev. Fr. Kenneth Teles and Mr. Roshan Nazareth. The seminar began with a prayer service, followed by the lighting of the traditional lamp.  Rev. Fr. Simão Diniz, Principal of the college welcomed the guests and the delegates.  In his introductory speech, he said that the seminar aims at fostering the culture of life.  He assured the delegates that the seminar will delve into different aspects of life and stated that `when our hearts are touched and our minds are charged, we can become apostles of the culture of life.’

The Chief Guest, His Grace, Most Rev. Filipe Neri Ferrão delivered the key note address where he explicitly spoke on the topic `Freedom of Choice and its Effects’.  His Grace showed concern towards the increasing culture of death.  He said that `we are living in a world of diverse culture which has dished out this culture of death’.  His Grace explained the concept of culture of death with the help of parables from the Bible and said “Freedom is power rooted in reason and will to choose between what is right and what is wrong” and that “there are people who have thrown reason out of the window to bring about their own self interest”.

Mr. Roshan Nazareth, Coordinator of Family Social Issues, Family Service Centre, spoke on `The Culture of Death’.  In his talk, Mr. Roshan Nazareth focused on what he referred to as the `Contraceptive Mentality’.  Contraceptive mentality consists of family planning, sex education, abuse of sex, ideological feminism, Eugenics and Euthanasia; and it is this that, according to him, is the cause of culture of death.  He also stated the symptoms of this culture as graying population, increase in abortions, pornography, homosexuality and live-in relationships.  The session concluded with clarifications and questions from the audience.

Dr. Melvin Chagas Silva spoke on the topic `Should you be having sex in your teens?’  Dr. Silva emphasized the importance of teen mental health and also the importance of preventing teenage sexual risk-taking.  He said “Different organizations agree to the goals, but there is a disagreement as to the methods to be used to reach the goals” and therefore, he said we need to arrive at a common method through open discussions.  This was followed by a question answer session.

Post lunch, the session on `Respect and Revere Life’ was delivered by Rev. Dr. Simão Diniz, Counselor and Clinical Psychologist.  Rev. Dr. Simão Diniz extensively covered the entire stages of gestation and stages of birth/labour; he gave a brief insight into the reasons for abortions, natural family planning and its advantages and post-abortion consequences.  He also provided the audience with points as to how to become a pro-lifer and how to defend one’s pro-life attitude.  He said that life is a gift from God and every life is a message that God still loves us.  A very interactive question-answer session followed.

The concluding session was a group discussion on life situation.  The participants for the seminar were divided into eleven groups; ten groups of students and one group of teachers.  All these groups were given the same life situation with two main questions, first, how to come out of the situation and second, how to be pro-life at home, HSSC/College and with peers.  The representatives of each group were asked to share their solutions with everyone.  

At the valedictory function, two participants were then asked to give a feedback on the entire experience of the seminar.  The feedback was very positive and delegates felt that such seminars should be conducted often.

Rev. Fr. Agnelo Fernandes presented the report on the proceedings of the seminar.

Rev. Fr. Kenneth Teles, the Chief Guest for the valedictory function, gave away the participation certificates to all the participants and in his speech said that he was very happy at the success of the seminar and thanked those involved in its organisation.

The vote of thanks was proposed by Ms. Rifa Rodrigues.