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I admire and fully endorse the priority of the new bishop of Ahmedabad. I am afraid he will face the greatest opposition from his own clergy and this for three reasons. 1. The shift from religion to spirituality will adversely affect the income of the clergy. 2. It will demand that the clergy be perceived less and less as ritualists and managers and more and more as persons endowed with values and depth. 3. That will just not be possible without radically revamping the whole seminary system. Among other things, this will mean that we are not just promoting our relatives, our caste members, the locals, etc.Subhash Anand, St. Paul’s School Bhupalpura, Udaipur-313001
Pope Francis reminds us that “the Church is herself a missionary disciple; she needs to grow in her interpretation of the revealed word and in her understanding of truth. It is the task of exegetes and theologians to help “the judgment of the Church to mature.” The other sciences also help to accomplish this, each in its own way” (Evangelii Gaudium, no. 40). Hence it is important and imperative that theology and scripture scholars and professors help the bishops by sharing with them latest findings of their respective fields. My impression is that very few bishops really update themselves.
The “itinerancy of Jesus’ movement is radical because it is a symbolic representation of unbrokered egalitarianism. Neither Jesus nor His followers are supposed to settle down in one place and establish there a brokered presence.”
“In Jesus’ movement all patriarchal authority disappears …No one is above the others. No one lords it over the others. There is no rank or class. There are no priests, Levites and lay people. There is no place for intermediaries. Everyone has direct, immediate access to God, the Father of all.”
“The older blueprint supposition, by which Jesus had the church clearly in mind and had already planned its structure, sacraments, etc., has little or no textual support.”
“There is no word for sacrament in the New Testament.” “The Church lived th
Once while a priest was giving a speech in the altar a person stood up and asked a question, ‘if a person does good deeds but does not believe in god will he go to heaven?’ This made the priest very confused. The priest said that I will give the answer to your question in the next week. During the whole week the priest read all the holy books the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Guru Granth Sahib in a quest to find the answer to the question. But he was unable to find an appropriate answer to this question. At last that Sunday came when the priest had to give an answer to that person’s question. After entering the church the priest sat near the altar on a chair and started thinking about it once again, slowly his eyes got closed and he fell into sleep. While he was asleep he saw a dream, in which he saw that ‘he was travelling with some strangers in a car he asked the driver that where were they going, the driver answered that we are going to hell. After sometime the car stopped and all stepped out and he saw a board written welcome to hell after reading it when the priest saw the whole place he was amazed to see that the place was just like a paradise, flowers were blossoming, the birds were taking their flight in a very mesmerizing manner, the air was very fresh and the atmosphere very peaceful. Then the priest when to a counter and asked the beautiful lady to confirm ‘whether this was heaven or hell?’ The receptionist replied that this is Hell, heari
Just like Indian Muslims, Christians in the country are also victims of a persistent questioning of their patriotism.
While suspicion of Christian groups has existed since the formation of the Indian state in 1947, this issue has gained in dimension with the election to power of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has support from Hindu groups working to make India a Hindu nation.
The BJP’s electoral victory in 2014 has not only emboldened Hindu nationalist groups to dismiss as unpatriotic all actions and ideas that fail to conform to the aims of Hindu nationalist groups but has also led to increasing anti-Catholic violence, particularly in central India.
It seems this crisis facing Christians was very much on the mind of Cardinal Oswald Gracias when speaking at the conference of Latin rite bishops in Bangalore in February. He reportedly told the gathering: “The Catholic Church needs our nation, and India needs the Church… We will be asking our people also to become better Indian Christians. This is the call of today to be fully Indian, fully Christian.”
In making such statements, bishops are making a profound analytical mistake not dissimilar to that made by the European Jews from the mid-18th century onwards.
Assuming that it was their external difference from Christian Europeans that was the reason for anti-Semitic hostility,
Since ‘it is a narrow gate and a hard road that leads to life, and only a few find it’ (Mt. 7:14) anyone who takes death seriously will wonder ‘will I be saved?’ Besides, there is the warning that ‘you will not get out till you have paid the very last penny’ (Lk.12:59), and there is the advice to ‘work for your salvation in fear and trembling’ (Phil. 2:12). Besides, there are preachers frightening people with the burden of having to do penance for the sins of forebears!This makes many, in an effort to save themselves, depend on fast and penance, novenas and pilgrimages, all sorts of devotional practices and rites of purification. Others turn to God; depend on God. Job finds peace in the knowledge that he has a Saviour (Job 19:25). The Bible is filled with the conviction that God Himself is the Saviour (Is. 41:14, 43:14, 49:26, 44:6, 54:8, 63:16, Ps. 3:8, 35:9, 68:20, Job 2:9, Rm. 1:16). Israel’s founding experience is that of a God who heard their cry, defeated their enemies, and effectively led them to a land flowing with milk and honey.God gave them rules for harmonious and prosperous living. But when, ignoring God and yielding to temptations, they were living self-destructively, God sent them prophets to lead them back to life-giving ways. Not satisfied with the results, ‘the kindness and love of God our Saviour’ (Tit. 3:4) became a human being for the salvation of all (1Tim. 4:10). This man, Jesus, like a mighty prophet, taught in word and de
