Devotees flocked to shrines dedi-cated to Venerable Agnelo in various places in India on his 96th death anniversary.
“Venerable Agnelo is an inspi-ration for Catholics in their journey of faith,” said Cardinal Filipe Neri Cardinal Ferrão, president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India, in his homily during the co-mmemorative Mass on November 20 at Pilar hillock, 13 km southeast of Panaji, capital of Goa state.
Daily Archives: November 30, 2023
Telangana’s “Buffalo-Sister” to strengthen democracy
Frustrated with the pervasive and paralyzing levels of unemployment in the state of Telangana, in southern India, and with no real hope of finding an employment in the near future, Karne Sirisha, a graduate woman, chose to graze buffaloes, and thereby to support her family.
At 25, she lives with her mother (who is abandoned by a drunkard-husband, not uncommon in rural India) and two younger brothers.
In spite of all odds that go with being born into a poor rural Dalit family, Sirisha fought her way and excelled in studies.
She is one of the angry and frustrated millions in Telangana who remain unemployed, recruited neither by the state nor by the private firms. Instead of remaining idle at home, Sirisha chose to add a few more buffaloes to the flock. Buffalo-milk consumption is popular in many areas in India.
By making and circulating a partly-critical and partly-humorous video in which she describes herself as Barrelakka, buffalo-sister (she uses it descriptively and not derogatorily), she ingeniously invented herself. As she got much attention and as her video got numerous views and shares, the panic-stricken government of Telangana, slapped cases against her. She has been fighting them all alone.
Tribal man’s Catholic faith helps him lead dignified life
Ratan Singh Masram does not remember seeing his father, who abandoned his mother a few months after he was born. His mother left him in the care of her parents.
Both mother and father remarried and “practically forgot about me,” he says.
Masram, a Gond tribal Catholic from central India, works hard as a day laborer to be a good father to his two children.
“Although I grew up almost like an orphan, my Catholic faith has helped me lead a decent life and bring up a Catholic family,” the 48-year-old says.
No one in Masram’s family was literate. The Gonds, a group of indigenous people in central and south-central India, did not send their children to school until recently.
“They also did not allow me to go to school,” he recalls.
As a child, he remembers working hard under the scorching sun in the fields, helping his grandparents cultivate rice, millet and oil seeds, besides grazing cattle and performing other daily chores like fetching water and firewood.
“God protected me. My life shows his plan,” says Masram who lives in a village in Dindori district of Madhya Pradesh state.
As a teenager, he was forced to move out of his grandparents’ home in search of work.
In nearby villages where he found work, Masram often spotted “some educated and well-behaved” people who wore “clean dresses.”
They regularly visited local people and took an interest in solving their problems.
He soon gathered they were Catholic priests and nuns from Jabalpur diocese.
“I wanted to be like them. But being illiterate, I knew very well that I could not become like them,” he recalled.
Despite the fact that nobody in his family even knew about Christianity, he made up his mind to become a Christian.
He was told by an acquaintance to meet the priest in nearby Junwani parish.
“The priest told me to learn more about Christianity before becoming one,” Masram said.
Though unable to read, he was determined enough to learn by heart the basic catechism.
A few years later, he was baptized.
At the age of 18, Masram married a Catholic woman named Chaity who was three years younger than him. This was in keeping with their tribe’s customs and practices at the time. However, he has ensured his children do not marry young.
The toxic effects of food and fear mongering in Malaysia
A restaurant in Malaysia sacked an employee after a video of him wearing a crucifix at work went viral last Sunday, kicking off a public outcry.
The latest mass expression of discontent linked with food could further widen the racial and religious divide in the Muslim-majority Southeast Asian nation.
The video of the crucifix-wearing man was meant to show the serpentine queue outside a restaurant in the heart of Kuala Lumpur well-known for its meat-filled flatbread.
However, many Muslim-Malay viewers were annoyed seeing the crucifix hanging from the worker’s neck. More-over, he was wearing the son-gkok, a Malay traditional headgear.
The restaurant faced a barrage of criticism. Was it trying to hoodwink the public into believing it was a halal establishment by making a non-Muslim wear a Malay-Muslim songkok? Some also questioned if the food and the preparation were halal.
China’s top patriotic bishop stresses unity, sinicization
Archbishop Joseph Li Shan of Beijing stressed the importance of building unity between Chinese Catholics across the mainland and Hong Kong by promoting Catholic spirituality and evangelization efforts in line with the process of sinicization following his three-day visit to Hong Kong.
Sinicization is a process by which religious practice is enculturated into the context of Chinese society so that it is assimilated within the local customs, styles, and language. However, for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) it has come to take on a new, political dimension whereby religious belief and practice are modified in order to fit into the frame-work of the party’s ideology.
“We pray that under the guidance of the revelation of the Holy Spirit of God, under the direction of the spirit of the Church’s communion, and under the diligent exploration of all of us, the Chinese Church will be able to promote the work of evangelization and spirituality along the direction of sinicization,” Li said after his Nov. 13-15 visit.
Pope Francis: Peace is possible, never resign yourselves to war!
“Peace is possible. It takes goodwill,” said Pope Francis on Sunday and he implored men and women of goodwill never to resign themselves to war.
“Peace is possible. Let us not resign ourselves to war.”
Reiterating his belief, already voiced on many occasions, and repeating the word “always” three times, the Holy Father cried: “War always, always, always is a defeat,” and he noted the only ones who gain from conflict are those who manu-facture weapons. “War always, always, always is a defeat. Only the weapons manufacturers gain.”
The Pope’s urgent appeal came as he addressed the faithful after the recitation of the Angelus Prayer in St.Peter’s Square.
Shining the spotlight on Myanmar where an escalation of hostilities between the country’s military junta and ethnic minority armed group, the Arakan Army, have spread to various townships where civilians have been caught in the crossfire, the Pope said “I renew my closeness to the dear people of Myanmar who unfortunately continue to suffer from violence and suppression. I pray that they will not be discouraged and always trust in the Lord’s help.”
“I renew my closeness to the dear people of Myanmar who unfortunately continue to suffer from violence and suppression.”
Never neglecting to remember those suffering from the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and in the war between Israel and Hamas, the Pope asked for prayers “for the tormented Ukraine and for the people of Palestine and Israel. “Let us continue to pray for the tormented Ukraine, and for the people of Palestine and Israel.”
Scottish artist calls Pope’s gift ‘cool and amazing’
A Scottish artist says he was “extremely proud” when he received a medal from Pope Francis for his work. The pope was given a print of “Throwaway Peo-ple” by Michael McVeigh by members of the Church of Scotland in the Vatican Nov. 4.
McVeigh is regarded as a modern-day folk artist whose work depicts everyday life in Scotland, and ‘Throwaway People’ is an expression of the plight of those on the margins of society. The artist was born in Dundee, where he studied Drawing and Painting at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art from 1977–1982.
Rt. Rev. Sally Foster-Fulton, the moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, told the artist that ‘Throwaway Peo-ple’ is an “expression of the fragility of life and how easy it is to fall through the cra-cks, and it is a print that I have bought myself.”
“I presented it to Pope Francis and explained the story behind it to him,” she said. “He turned it over and wrote on the back in Italian and said ‘I don’t want to forget what you just said’. You have shared your gift with the pope, it really resonated with him, and in return he asked me to give you this Papal medal as a token of his appreciation,” Foster-Fulton said. ‘Throwaway People’ by Michael McVeigh. The Moderator presented a print to Pope Francis at the Vatican earlier this month.
English surgeon makes waves, literally, to help Ethiopians in need
Scotland’s leading Catholic charity got an unusual fundraiser from an orthopedic surgeon in northern England, who literally made some waves to help Ethio-pians in need.
Consultant Orthopedic Sur-geon Matthew Cartwright-Terry is a supporter of SCIAF, the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund, and recently raised money by swimming the Mersey River in North West England.
“I was inspired to support SCIAF through a flier I was sent concerning the distress of the Ethiopian people. The swim was a bucket list activity, with the timing [providing] the perfect opportunity to provide some support,” he said.
Michael Hamilton, the Community Manager Office of SCIAF, said the surgeon’s fund-raising will go towards an Emer-gency Appeal for Ethiopia that was launched this summer.
“Ethiopia is experiencing its worst drought in recent history and there is no sign of the situa-tion improving. With support like Matthew’s, we are working to help alleviate people’s suffering in the south of the country,” he told.
“We can ensure families can survive by providing immediate access to critical food supplies and financial support. We work with partners in Ethiopia to deliver this support,” Hamilton said.
The Catholic charity notes that millions of people are experiencing an extreme hunger crisis after the worst drought in recent history, with rivers dried up, crops withering, and livestock dying.
It reports that in March, SCIAF received $154,000 from the Scottish Government’s Humanitarian Emergency Fund to provide food supplies and access to safe water affected by the crisis.
“We can ensure families can survive by providing immediate access to critical food supplies and financial support,” Hamilton told Crux. “We work with partners in Ethiopia to deliver this support.”
Cartwright-Terry said the September swim couldn’t have been on a better day.
“Finally, we set off trying to remain in our group, the 58 society, as per safety instructions. The six of us managed to remain together for the entire crossing with a couple of stops to admire the view from the middle of the river and even take some selfies,” the surgeon said.
In Pope’s home country, Gaza war stokes Jewish-Muslim tensions
In the pope’s home nation of Argentina, encompassing both Jewish and Muslim populations which are among the largest in South America, the strains of the war between Israel and Hamas are increasingly taking a toll.
A meeting between the Catholic Church and the leading Muslim organization in Argentina on Nov. 14 signaled that interfaith dialogue may still be possible, but also highlighted the challenges.
In Argentina a large Jewish community estimated at 300,000 people coexists with one of the greatest Muslim populations in Latin America, thought to encompass at least 700,000 people.
According to some Muslim leaders in the country, since the Hamas attacks on October 7, the Argentine media has been covering the issue with considerable doses of Islamophobia. They complain that most TV shows fail to invite Muslims to debates, and that the views expressed in most of them tend to be pro-Israel and anti-Islam.
The effects of that alleged biased coverage, they say, are being felt by people in their daily lives. Human rights organizations and Muslim entities have been reporting an increasing number of incidents in which individuals perceived as Muslims, especially women wearing headscarves, have been verbally or physically attacked on the street or other public locations.
Bishop says African Pentecostals are waging ‘guerilla war’ against Catholicism
A leading bishop in the Republic of the Congo has warned that an exponential rise in Christian Pentecostalism in the country is posing a stiff challenge to the Catholic Church, drawing people away amid what he described as “guerilla warfare” in the spiritual realm.
“They disrupt the faith of Catholics by offering quick and easy solutions to their problems,” said Archbishop Bienvenu Manamika Bafouakouahou of Brazzaville, in a wide-ranging interview with the Fides news agency.
According to the CIA World Factbook, Catholics constituted 33.3 % of the population of Congo-Brazzaville in 2019, closely followed by the Awakening/Revival churches with 22.3 percent and other Protestants making up 19.9 % .
Manamika said the promise of quick fixes from the revival churches seems to be hemorrhaging the Catholic Church.
“There are so-called “revival churches” or Pentecostal communities that wage a kind of “guerrilla warfare” on spiritual terrain, in the sense that they bitterly fight the Catholic Church,” he said.
He said the Pentecostals have been effective in exploiting the poverty of the people to promise miraculous solutions to their “pressing problems,” and often, people find comfort in such promises.