Indian President Ram Nath Kovind on August 24 told a delegation of Catholic prelates that the Church’s work for the poor and downtrodden was commendable.

While the whole world speaks of development, spirituality in this development is also important; the president told the eight-member delegation led by Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI). The 14th head of the world’s largest democracy appealed to the bishops to continue the spiritual development, a CBCI press note said.

Besides Cardinal Cleemis, the Church team comprised Cardinals Oswald Gracias, archbishop of Bombay, and Telesphore P Toppo, archbishop of Ranchi and Archbishops Filipe Neri Ferrão of Goa, Abraham Viru-thakulangara of Nagpur, Albert D’Souza of Agra, Anil Couto of Delhi. CBCI secretary general Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas was also part of the team. The CBCI note explain-ed the prelates made a “courtesy call” on the president, who assumed office on July 25.

Cardinal Cleemis, who spoke for the team, conveyed the Catholic Church’s best wishes and prayers to the president. He said, India was a democratic, secular republic and “we live by the sacred book of the Country – the Indian Constitutions.”

A Catholic priest kidnapped in Yemen last year is alive and could be released soon, a Salesians information service reported India’s foreign minister as saying.

Sushma Swaraj made the comment during recent talks with a delegation from the Salesian religious order, which asked her to ensure the swift release of fellow Salesian Father Tom Uzhunnalil, who was kidnapped in Yemen more than a year ago.

The minister also reportedly told the group that securing his freedom was among the highest priorities of the government.

According to Indian Salesians’ news portal, Bosco Information Service, the minister said she felt for the “unimaginable trauma and suffering” Father Uzhunnalil has endured.

The Supreme Court has sought the Centre’s res-ponse on a plea by Dalit Christians seeking parity in quota with their counter-parts among the Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist com-munities. On Aug 21, a bench comprising Chief Justice J S Khehar and D Y Chandrachud issued that notice. The bench was hearing the plea filed by All India Catholic Union challenging the validity of paragraph 3 of the Constitution (Scheduled Caste) Order, 1950, which says no person who professes a religion different from Hindus, Sikhs or Buddhists shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste. The plea has sought inclusion of Dalit Christians in the Scheduled Caste category for enabling them to get benefits of reservation under the Constitution.

A 12-member Christian dele-gation on August 23 met Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to congratulate him for becoming India’s best administrator.

Abp John Barwa of Cuttack Bhubaneswar led the delegation comprising priests, religious and lay people. They met the chief at his office on behalf of all Chri-stians in the eastern Indian state.
The “Outlook,” a weekly magazine published from New Delhi, chose Patnaik as the “Best Administrator of the Country.”

India’s immediate past President Pranab Mukherjee presented the award at a function in New Delhi on August 21. Patnaik dedicated the award to Odisha’s 45 million people.

Patnaik was chosen from six chief ministers — Nitish Kumar of Bihar, Manik Sarkar of Tripura, Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal, Devendra Fadnavis of Maharashtra and Siddaramaiah of Karnataka.

The Sisters of Charity of Nazareth have come to the aid of people in ten villages reeling under flood fury in Bihar’s Madhepura district. Around 24,000 people live in 81 wards of 12 panchayats under the Goalpara block of the district reeling under the flood fury Goalpara block is around 290 km north of the State capital of Patna.

Two women were killed on Aug. 21 as they waded through water flowing over a small bridge in Fulaut village in Madhepura district. Bihar flood death toll continues to rise. As on August 21, the state reported 253 deaths in 20 districts. The water level in the catchment areas continues to rise in incessant rains.

“Although water seems to recede gradually, many houses are under water,” Sister Lilly Thomas, a trained nurse, told Matters India on August 20.

The worst affected districts are Araria, Sitamarhi, Kishan-ganj, Madhubani, East and West Champaran, Purnia, Katihar and Khagaria. Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated and many are left homeless and shelterless.

The Nazareth nun said local people are afraid that they would face a repeat of the 2008 tragedy when the entire area was submerged under water for days.

Goan Catholics are not apprehensive about the beef ban issue in the state’s context, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said. He was responding to a query if in course of his campaign for the Panaji by-poll, Catholic voters had expressed their grievances about the beef ban narrative at the national level. “Nothing is coming through. Those who have read and have knowledge, they know the situation vis-à-vis the Goan context,” Parrikar said on Aug 17. Catholics account for more than a quarter of the state’s 1.5 million population and are a sizeable votebank in the Panaji assembly constituency. The Goa Church has openly criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party regime, both at the Centre and the BJP-led coalition government in the state, accusing it of trying to clamp down on sale of beef, brazenly in the rest of India and subtly in the coastal state, where minorities and a sizeable chunk of the six million plus tourists who visit the state, eat it.

Indian democracy is under threat from “pseudo-nationalism” and “right-wing fanaticism mas-querading as nationalism,” a column published in Renovacao, a Goa Church periodical, has said.
“Quo Vadis India?” by Father Savio Fernandes in the latest edition of the pastoral bulletin of the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman, also bemoans efforts to make India a Hindu Rashtra by 2020 and rues the “political rhetoric” which is triggering hate crimes against dalits and members of the minority community.

“Competition for political and economic power has encouraged pseudo-nationalism, which uses religion as a tool to gain accept-ance,” Fernandes said in the column.

He heads the Council for Social Justice and Peace, the social arm of Goa’s influential Roman Catholic Church, which is the religious and spiritual leader of more than 26 percent of the state’s Catholic population.

“This is an important turning point in India’s politics, because after being dominated for several decades by Left-leaning policies, the political space is now being rapidly cornered by Rightwing fanaticism masquerading as anationalism.”

“From the much talked about pluralism and diversity being the hallmark of the Indian nation, there are attempts to impose one culture, one religion, one langu-age ideology – a Hindu Rashtra by 2020 which marks the 75th anniversary of our nation’s inde-pendence,” the column stated.