A Filipina nun, who served India for 41 years, has returned to her native country. Sister Linda Gomez of Daughters of the Charity, a congregation founded by St Vincent De Paul, worked among the poor mostly in Odisha, eastern India, has returned to the Philippines. Sister Martha Pradhan, who heads the congregation’s North India province, in a ceremony in Berhampur on August 25, thanked Sister Gomez for her service to the Church and society in India. Sister Gomez worked also among the poor in West Bengal and other parts of the country. She was among the first to volunteer to work among the victims of the Orissa Super Cyclone 1994, Sister Pradhan recalled.
Daily Archives: September 1, 2018
Activists protest death of children “rescued” from Teresa home
Human right activists gathered at a busy junction in Ranchi on August 21 to protest the death of two infants who were “rescued” from a Missionaries of Charity centre by a Jharkhand government department.
“The two children died of dehydration within six weeks of them being forcibly removed from the Missionaries of Charity centre,” Gopinath Ghosh, an activist associated with “Jan Awaz” (people’s voice), told Matters India on August 22. Jan Awaz, an umbrella body for various human rights groups working in the eastern Indian state, organized the protest march at Albert Ekka Chawk.
The children, just six months old, died on August 19 at a centre managed by Sahayog Village, an NGO favoured by the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), a Jharkhand government’s department, at Khunti district.
The two infants were among 22 children the CWC took away on July 6 from Nirmala Shishu Bhavan (Immaculate home for children), managed by the Mother Teresa nuns at Hinoo, a Ranchi suburb. Out of them, 12 children belonged to Khunti, some 35 km south of Ranchi.
Women angry over pope’s sex abuse letter
Pope Francis’ call for fasting and prayer to atone for the sexual misdeeds of clergy has evoked angry responses from leading Catholic women in India who are demanding action to stem such crimes.
The Aug. 20 papal letter asked for forgiveness for clerical abuse a week after a U.S. court investigation reported that over 300 “predator priests” in the state of Pennsylvania had abused more than 1,000 children over several decades.
Pope Francis stated that fasting could drive a desire for justice through a commitment to truth and charity.
“Making the laity fast and pray is not the solution,” female theologian Kochurani Abraham told ucanews.com. “Clerical sexual infidelity should be punished and not hidden under the carpet.”
She said the church needs to make a distinction between sin and crime. “Sin is something that you can repent and be absolved of,” Abraham said. “But crime has to be punished.” The sooner the church realized this, the better, she added.
Police have been investigating Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jalandhar after a Catholic nun, who is the former superior of a diocesan congregation under the bishop, accused him of raping her four years ago and then sexually abusing her 13 more times during the following two years. “But we saw no action,” Kochurani said. “The letter was not even acknowledged.”
Tamil Catholics dig deep for Myanmar church
Visitors to a Tamil Catholic village in Myanmar are greeted by the Holy Cross at its entrance and can see St Anthony’s Church even before they arrive in the centre.
Yaw Han, 24, is proud of being a Catholic in Hton-Bo-Quay in Kayin State after a community effort helped fund construction of a new church building in 2016-17.
His family donated 2 million kyats (US$1,380) to the project, helped by his two elder brothers saving money from their salaries in Malaysia.
“We willingly made donations and did not feel it was a burden despite most villagers struggling for their daily survival with traditional agriculture work,” Yaw Han told ucanews. com.
He helps his family to grow rice when he is not taking part in activities as the village’s youth leader. His youth group contributed 300,000 kyats to the church project while other organizations including a mothers’ group, pastoral council and women’s group donated a total of 16 million kyats.
About 100 young men and women from the village who are working in Malaysia, Singapore and the United States contributed about 38 million kyats of the overall project cost of 170 million kyats (US$117,300).
Pope: Abuse victims’ outcry more powerful than efforts to silence them
“No effort must be spared” to prevent future cases of clerical sexual abuse and “to prevent the possibility of their being covered up,” Pope Francis said in a letter addressed “to the people of God.”
The letter was published after the release of a Pennsylvania grand jury report on decades of clerical sexual abuse and cover-ups in six dioceses. The report spoke of credible allegations against 301 priests in cases involving more than 1,000 children.
Theologians, lay leaders call for mass resignations of US bishops
More than 140 theologians, educators and lay leaders have called for all U.S. bishops to submit their resignations to Pope Francis, much like Chile’s 34 bishops did in May after revelations of sexual abuse and corruption, as a public act of penance and a “willing abdication of earthly status.”
“Today, we call on the Catholic Bishops of the United States to prayerfully and genuinely consider submitting to Pope Francis their collective resignation as a public act of repentance and lamentation before God and God’s People,” said a statement, posted in English and Spanish on the Daily Theology blog on August 17.
“Only then might the wrenching work of healing begin,” it said.
The statement came in response to release of a grand jury report that detailed seven decades of sexual abuse by clergy and cover-up by church leaders in six dioceses in Pennsylvania, as well as allegations earlier this summer that former archbishop of Washington, Theodore McCarrick, sexually abused two children and adult seminarians.
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