A retired Supreme Court judge known for his compassion for the downtrodden has urged Christian priests and religious to refrain from amassing material goods but serve their people. “Priests and religious have to collect only what is left out after feeding the people. They have no right to amass without giving to the people,” Justice Kurian Joseph told a seminar on socially-oriented seminary formation, referring to the biblical account of Jesus multiplying loaves to feed the hungry.

The February 8-10 seminar was organized by Dharmaram College, Bengaluru, capital of Karnataka state. As many as 92 people, including rectors of major seminaries and seminary professors participated in the seminar on “Socially Oriented Formation in Major Seminaries.”

Justice Joseph was among several lay leaders who attended the seminar.

Addressing the opening session on February 8, Justice Joseph asked the seminary rectors and professors, “Are we concentrating on the “sheep without shepherd?”

He said the role of priests is to contribute to build the Kingdom of God. The core values of Indian Constitution: justice, liberty, equality and fraternity, are the values of the Kingdom of God, he clarified.

“You be the change that you want to see in others,” he said and asserted that priest and religious have to become the Bible in the context they live and work. “In order to become Bible the seminarians have to imbibe during the formation the qualities of conviction, commitment and zeal.”

Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas, secretary general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India who addressed the valedictory session, urged seminary rectors and formators to train their students to become persons of compassion after the model of Jesus.

Ram Puniyani, former professor of IIT Bombay, who spoke on “Quest for a Civilized Society in the Context of Growing Religious Polarization, noted that the current fight is between democracy and Hindutva.

The South Asian Dalit Christian Conference is to be held at NBCLC, Bangaluru, South India, on Feb. 13–14. The topic chosen is “Dalits Witnessing Faith at the Cross Roads in South Asia and Christian Response.”

Participants include Dalit Religious, priests, bishops, leaders and activists across South Asian countries. Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, Vatican, will be the chief guest of the conference, said Fr Devasagayaraj M Zakarias, national secretary of the Office for Scheduled Caste/Backward Class under the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), the event organizer.

Other speakers who will address the gathering on the Dalit scenario and offer theological reflection are Jesuits Dr Selva and Dr Maria Arul Raja. Both of them are leading scholars on Dalits.

This will be followed by the sharing of the faith experience of Dalits in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Malaysia, Singapore and Bangladesh, including Kandhamal anti-Christian persecutions 2008 survivors of Odisha, Eastern India.

The Catholic Bishops’ Con-ference of India (CBCI) Office for Scheduled Caste/BC (Dalits and Backward Classes) has welcomed the Andhra Pradesh’s bill to accord Scheduled Caste (SC) status to Dalit Christians.

Already some of the states have passed the same resolution in their assemblies. The resent one was by the Pondicherry assembly. Already the United Andhra Pradesh Assembly passed the resolution on Feb 7.

“Passing of the resolution in the assemblies to include Dalit Christians in the SC list is a sign that the State Governments support the move to include the Dalit Christians in the SC list. Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu of Andhra Pradesh and his allies of other regional parties will play a great role in the formation of the next Central Government,” Father Devasagayaraj M Zackarias, national secretary of CBCI Office for SC /BC told Matters India. This gives a great hope to the Dalit Christians that the long pending rightful demand to be included in the SC list will become a reality.

The high court in India’s Chhattisgarh State has ruled that the tribal status of a person will not alter if they change their religion to Christianity, stressing they can still enjoy state concessions aimed at improving the life of indigenous people.

The ruling was handed down as the court dismissed an election petition against Amit Jogi, the son of former state chief minister Ajit Jogi. The petition was put forward by Sameera Paikara, a member of the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Amit Jogi won a seat reserved for tribal candi-dates in the 2013 state elections, but his victory was challenged by Paikara who took it to court.

Paikara argued Jogi could no longer claim tribal rights because his family converted to Christianity. “It can be presumed that even if the respondent adopted Christianity, his right of status of the Kanwar tribe cannot be taken away,” the court ruled on Feb. 1.

Hard-line Hindu groups — with BJP backing — have opposed Christians converted from tribal communities enjoying government benefits such as the reservation of seats in elected bodies, educational institutions and government jobs.