Buying Pagan Babies

Years ago, before I became a Catholic, I started contributing to the missionary work of the Society of the Divine Word, Societas Verbi Divini, the largest missionary congregation in the Church. It was founded in 1875 by St Arnold Janssen.

The method I used for contributing was 'buying pagan babies'. For a small donation, I got to pick the baptismal name of an infant or a new convert in the missions, and be one of the Godparents. This was often done in Catholic schools prior to the Council, when schoolchildren would contribute their pennies until enough was raised, and then picking a name, they would send their contribution to the missionaries.

I'm sure that Sister Teacher made certain that the name picked was appropriate. Unfortunately, I had no such constraint. Assuming it was a gentle scam to raise money, I got creative! I searched out ancient Anglo-Saxon, Nordic, and German Saints from whom to pick names. I don't remember them all, but one I do remember is St Cunegunda, Empress (Feast Day, 3 March), wife of St Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor. I happen to like the name so much I wanted to name our youngest daughter Cunegunda. The Cuter and Shorter Half put her foot down rather sharply on that idea!

At any rate, the custom of 'naming pagan babies' eventually ended, but I continued to contribute to the S.V.D. After becoming a Catholic, I wrote the US headquarters and asked if there was any way I could correspond with one of the missionaries. In reply, I was told that God worked in mysterious ways because they had recently received a letter from one of their missionaries asking if he could correspond with a donor.

The missionary's name I was given was Fr Thomas Nelluvelly, a South Indian cradle Catholic who was on mission in Botswana, after having worked in Northern India. After corresponding for a while, Father wrote and told me he was going to be making a mission fundraising trip to the US, but unfortunately, he would be nowhere near Lawrence, KS, where I lived.

However, after he arrived, I received a note from him that his planned stop in Denver had been canceled, he had a free week, and he would like to meet my family and I. We had four small children in a very small apartment at the time, so we had no room. I called my Pastor and explained what was going on. He graciously offered Father the hospitality of the rectory and an opportunity to preach a mission sermon at each Mass the weekend he was with us. As it happened, Father raised more funds for his mission in his unscheduled and previously unannounced visit to Lawrence than he did in places where his visit had been publicised.

But, back to pagan babies. One afternoon as we were talking in our living room (and my youngest son, still a crawling infant, tried to eat Father's shoe!), I mentioned my assumption that it was a gentle scam to raise money for the missions. He said, oh, no, that those names were actually used!

I sincerely hope the baptising Priest gave each of my Godchildren a culturally appropriate first name! Otherwise, I'm sure that I now have numerous Godchildren, in far off lands, who are not at all happy with their Godfather and the names he chose for them!