A papal decision allowing women to vote in the concluding discussions of the Synod on Synodality compels Asia’s national churches to widen the participation of lay people, particularly women, in Church activities, say leading Asian theologians.
A Vatican statement on April 26 said Pope Francis has “approved the extension of participation in the synodal assembly to ‘non-bishops’ — priests, deacons, consecrated men and women, lay men and women,” with voting rights.
It means “the universal Church, as well as local churches, must open their doors to welcome the greater and active participation of women in making crucial decisions about the Church’s activities,” said theologian Father Joseph Ho Thu, who teaches at Vietnam’s Hue Major Seminary.
Theologians across Asia expressed similar views alluding to how national churches have been excluding lay people, particularly women, from bodies that make decisions on their budgeting, ministry programs, volunteer labor, and internal operations.
Despite several resolutions passed in Church seminars and conferences stressing the need for lay participation, men, mostly clerics, continue to head even the offices or commissions meant to protect women’s interests in dioceses, and the regional and national bodies of bishops.
Daily Archives: May 12, 2023
Church leaders discuss ways to combat human trafficking
The Commission for Migrants of the Conference of the Catholic Bishops of India on May 1 drew plans to combat the issues of forced labor and human trafficking in its Agra region comprising 10 dioceses.
Some 30 delegates from these dioceses attended a workshop at Gyandeep Bhawan Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan, to celebrate the International Worker’s Day and address human trafficking and bonded labor that are rampant in the agricultural field, brick kilns and factories of the region.
The participants decided to form a resource team equipped with legal knowledge and adequate skills to effectively address human trafficking which has become a serious issue after the Covid-19 pandemic in region.
They stressed the need for educating Christians on the Church’s social teaching to end injustice against workers.
They noted that the pandemic and the subsequent economic slowdown have worsened migrant workers’ situation. The number of unemployed youth in the country is on rise. Some states have failed to create enough jobs forcing workers to flee to metropolitan cities for livelihood leaving behind their families.
Catholic orphanage raided, priests arrested in India
An orphanage serving differently abled children for the past 150 years was raided by government agencies in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
The officers of the state units of National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) and Child Welfare Committee desecrated a church, beat up priests, destroyed computers and ransacked a convent during their May 8 raid of St Francis Orphanage at Shampura in Sagar district under Sagar diocese.
Police also arrested two priests, accusing them of obstructing government officials from discharging their duty. A local sub-divisional magistrate court granted them bail on the same day.
Father Joshy E P, one of the arrested priests, told Matters India on May 9, the police officials beat him and Father Naveen B after they objected to the inspection team members climbing on the altar of a British era church in the campus.
“The police beat and abused us with filthy language in front of everybody,” he said and added, “I was again thrashed on the police vehicle while being taken to the police station.”
Hindu fundamentalists oppose Catholic children’s summer camp
More than a hundred Hindu activists forcefully entered a Catholic school in Chhattisgarh to oppose a summer catechetical camp held there for Catholic children.
The intruders, who entered the Vishwadeep School campus around noon on May 7, alleged the program was meant to convert “Hindu” children. The school in Durg, 40 km west of Raipur, the state capital.
On information, police and government officials rushed to the school and pacified the activists, after verifying from the organizers that all the children were Catholics and only some moral lessons were imparted to them.
As many as 197 boys and girls, studying in 8-12 grades, had come to the camp from seven nearby parishes. Bhilai area has many Catholic parishes,
The archdiocese conducts the annual summer catechetical camps or retreats for Catholic children to supplement Sunday catechism classes.
The intruders, belonging to various Hindu organizations, claimed that list showed names of Hindu children. They demanded to know whether the organizers had written permission from the government to conduct the religious program and from the parents for their children to attend it.
Father John Ponnore, the diocesan catechetical director, explained to them that their Catholic parents’ permission was implicit since they had to pay 400 rupees each as fees for meals and accommodation for three days. They also said no permission from the government was needed to organize programs for church members. But the activists ignored the priest.
Vaijayanti Mala Tigga, a parishioner involved in the camp, was a government employee, and the fundamentalists said at least she should have followed the government norms.
On checking the organizers’ laptop, Thashildar Durga Sahu and the BJP local ward member Hema Sharma found no materials for religious conversion. But the fundamentalists alleged that the organizers had deleted the contents.
Father Ponnore explained to them that these children were taught the right use of mobiles, besides providing them sex education.
The police and the authorities made the fundamentalists to return by 4 pm. On hearing the news, some 300 people also gathered outside the gate.
75 years later, Missionaries of Charity acquire Mother Teresa’s first house
Seventy-five years after Mother Teresa launched her full-time service to the poor in a shelter in the distressed Entally neighborhood of Kolkata, the order she founded, the Missionaries of Charity, has announced that it finally secured ownership of the property.
Although the young Mother Teresa arrived in Kolkata as a Sisters of Loreto missionary in 1928, it was twenty years later when she dedicated herself full-time to the service of the poor and abandoned living in slums around the order’s house in Entally, using a building she came to call the “home of the pure heart,” or Nirmal Hriday.
Although her followers in the Missionaries of Charity have cared for the facility ever since, due to issues related to zoning and occupancy they were only able to secure legal ownership of the property recently. The legal tangles were resolved, according to media reports, on the initiative of a local member of India’s parliament.
“It is a beautiful gesture by the state government to facilitate handing over this place to us,” said Mother Teresa’s successor as superior of the Missionaries of Charity, Sister Mary Joseph Michael.
Manipur clashes, a grave tragedy, says Archbishop Menamparampil
Order has been restored in Manipur following a large-scale intervention by India’s military; however, the wounds caused by the recent clashes between the mainly Hindu Meiteis ethnic majority and the mostly Christian tribal communities are deep, this according to Msgr Thomas Menamparampil, Archbishop Emeritus of Guwahati, a leading Catholic figure in north-eastern India.
In the state capital, Imphal, it is time to assess the damage wrought by the violence, including the many Catholic churches and convents devastated, not to mention the displacement of thousands of people forced to flee their homes.
For its part, the Supreme Court of India heard a petition today calling for the creation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to find out what happened.
“Our immediate target is protection, rescue and rehabilitation of people,” the top court said, asking both the Union and state governments to give details of relief camps. The displaced “must be brought back to their homes. Religious places must also be protected,” it demanded.
With 54 killed and 13,000 rescued from conflict situations, Manipur moves on to greater security after several days of intense anxiety.
Attacks on Christians: Supreme Court urged to appoint monitoring agency
A Catholic archbishop and two groups have urged the Supreme Court of India to appoint an agency to monitor attacks against Christians in the country.
The request came from Arch-bishop Peter Macho of Bangalore, the National Solidarity Forum and the Evangelical Fellow-ship of India, who had earlier filed a petition in the apex court alleging widespread attacks against Christians in the country, reports livelaw.in.
The three also pointed out a counter report from the government has disclosed that political groups linked to it were involved in the communal crimes. Hence, the government cannot be relied upon or trusted with monitoring or reporting to the apex court, they said.
The three want the agency to effectively supervise the criminal investigations taking place in “troubled spots” in India.
The request was made in the petitioners’ rejoinder to the federal government’s counter affidavit that refuted petitioners.
The government has denied any persecution has taken place against Christians in India and alleged that the petition has relied on baseless and unverified re-ports. The petitioners, the government added, have presented certain personal disputes as communal crimes.
The petitioners disputed the government and stated that the state machinery has failed in taking immediate and necessary stringent actions against groups that caused widespread violence such as attacks at Christian places of worship and disruption of prayer meetings. The groups also indulged in hate speeches against Christians, they alleged.
The petitioners also expressed lack of confidence with the government and requested for a retired Supreme Court judge to head the monitoring agency with a mandate to appoint distinguished police officers who can effectively supervise the investigation of the cases.
Vatican hosts meeting with European Hindus
About fifty-five parti-cipants representing the Christian and Hindu religious traditions in Europe gathered in Rome for a meeting on the theme “Hindus and Christians in Europe: Building together a ‘fraternity-based new humanism’”. The meeting, which was the first of its kind, took place yesterday and was organised by the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue in collaboration with the Hindu Forum of Europe, the Italian Hindu Union and the World Council of Churches. Participants reflected on the changing dynamics of the Hindu-Christian relationship in Europe and envisaged ways of enhancing cooperation on issues that would foster human flourishing through interreligious dialogue, solidarity and hospitality. It was acknowledged that the Hindu concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the whole world is one family) and Pope Francis’s Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti serve as compasses to guide Hindus and Christians towards a ‘new humanism’ in an increasingly intercultural and interreligious Europe. Participants also had the opportunity today to take part in the General Audience of the Holy Father.
Indian missionary serving Africa appointed bishop of Odisha’s Balasore
Pope Francis has appointed an Indian prelate serving Ethiopia in East Africa as the new bishop of Balasore diocese in the eastern Indian state of Odisha.
The Vatican on May 10 announced the appointment of Monsignor Varghese Thottamkara, a member of the Congregation of the Missions. The 64-year-old prelate is currently serving as the vicar apostolic of Nekemte in Ethiopia.
The diocese of Balasore was lying vacant after Bishop Simon Kaipuram died of a massive heart attack on April 22, 2019. Father Isaac Puthenangady is the current administrator of the diocese.
“Getting a new bishop is good news for the diocese of Balasore,” says Father Jadu Marandi, former vicar general of Balasore. He told Matters India that they diocese has been waiting for a shepherd for the past four years.
Bishop Thottamkara was born on May 23, 1960, at Thottuva under the Ernakulam-Angamaly Syro Malabar Archdiocese in the southern Indian state of Kerala. After matriculation at G V H School, Koovapady, he joined the Congregation of the Mission’s minor seminary in Gopalpur in July 1976.
He was ordained a priest on January 6, 1987, at his home parish, St. Joseph’s Church, Thottuva, by Cardinal Antony Padiyara. He began his priestly ministry as the assistant pastor of Muniguda, a town in Odisha’s Rayagada district.
He holds a licentiate in moral theology. He was the assistant pastor and hostel warden of Christnagar (Allada) during 1988-1990. In 1990, he was sent to Ethiopia to teach in the minor seminary at Ambo managed by the Vincentians of Ethiopia. In 1992 he served as a visiting professor at the major seminary at Addis Ababa.
The following year, he was transferred to Addis Ababa as the first rector of St. Paul’s Major Seminary of the Apostolic Vicariate of Nekemte.
He also served as the judicial vicar of the vicariates of Southern Ethiopia. In 1997 was appointed rector of the Vincentian Major Seminary at Addis Ababa. In 2003, he was elected assistant provincial of the Southern Indian province and in 2004 he was appointed rector and superior of St. Vincent’s Mission House, Aluva, Kerala.
The Vincentian superior general appointed him procurator general both his congregation as well as the Daughters of Charity. He was also the archivist at the general curia in 2005.
World Bank: one in two people in rural Sri Lanka live below the poverty line
Sri Lanka has lost half a million jobs in industry and services. With the rising cost of living, this has doubled the national poverty level to 25 %, this according to the World Bank’s latest report titled, “Sri Lanka Development Update 2022”.
One of the consequences has been the growth in regional disparities. While poverty jumped to 15 per cent in urban areas, it skyrocketed to 52 % in rural areas.
Several factors in the past five years explain this development, most notably a restrictive trade regime, a poor investment climate, and a careless monetary policy, not to mention the COVID-19 pandemic.
After its credit rating was downgraded, Sri Lanka lost access to international financial markets in 2020. As a result, its official reserves fell from US$ 7.6 billion in 2019 to less than US$ 500 million in December 2022.
Against this background, the World Bank has insisted on debt restructuring and growth-enhancing structural reforms, but these must be accompanied by measures to combat poverty.
For Faris Hadad-Zervos, World Bank Country Director for Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka, “The current crisis is not a temporary liquidity shock that can be resolved by external financing support from outside. Instead, the crisis provides a unique opportunity to implement deep and permanent structural reforms that may be difficult in normal circumstances. Sri Lanka can use this opportunity to build a strong and resilient economy.”