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India’s Eastern Rite bishop moves closer to sainthood

The Vatican has declared Eastern Rite Indian Bishop Matthew Makil a venerable, bringing him one step closer to canonization. Bishop Makil (1851–1914), the first vicar apostolic of Kottayam vicariate in south-ern India, led the Syro-Malabar Church almost a decade before the Vatican established the Church’s hierarchy in 1923. Pope Leo XIV, on May 22, signed […]

Denying burial space to Christians is a growing new trend in India

Refusing burial space to Christians has become a new trend in villages in central and eastern India to pressure Chris-tians into abandoning their faith and to discourage others from associating with missionaries, say Christian leaders. “Christians, irrespective of any denomination, are aware of repeated cases of denial of burial space to tribal Christians in their […]

India’s top court sees ‘abuse of law’ in case against two Christians

India’s Supreme Court has quashed two criminal cases against a top Christian educator and his friend in northern Uttar Pradesh state, declaring the cases an “abuse of the process of law.” The May 24 order of the top court in the country said the lower courts need to exercise their powers to examine if “the […]

Protest threats in India’s Manipur state upset Christian leaders

An influential Hindu orga-nization in India’s conflict-ridden Manipur state has called for an escalation in protests against the state administration, which Chri-stian leaders warn could jeo-pardize ongoing peace initia-tives in the region. The Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), the top body of the majority Hindu Meiteis, ended a 48-hour protest on May 24. The […]

Thousands attend elevation of Calicut as archdiocese

More than 10,000 people braved heavy rains to attend a ceremony to elevate Calicut diocese as a metropolitan arch-diocese and its bishop as its first metro-politan archbishop. Apostolic Nuncio to India and Nepal Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli led the May 25 ceremonies at St. Joseph’s Church, in Kozhikode (formerly Calicut). In his homily during the inaugural […]

Christian marriage takes away lower caste social benefits: Indian court

The top court in southern Indian Tamil Nadu state has ruled that persons marrying under the Christian personal law should be considered to have converted to Christianity and abandoned their eligibility for caste-based social benefits. The ruling came in a case seeking the court’s order to disqualify the “illegal” election victory of a lower caste […]

Christians in India’s Odisha denied ‘right to belief, dignified burial’

A legal rights group on a fact-finding mission in a tribal district of India’s eastern Odi-sha state has found that aggre-ssive Hindu mobs are denying poor Christians from tribal and Dalit communities the “right to belief and a dignified burial.” The Odisha Lawyers Forum, in a May 14 report titled: Free-dom to Be Buried, A […]

Four Indian Christians arrested for alleged conversion

Police in Uttar Pradesh in northern India have arrested four Christians after they were accused of violating the state’s stringent anti-conversion law. “Our four faithful were arrested on May 12 after they were accused of attempting to convert gullible indigenous people with job offers and financial aid,” said a Church official providing legal help to […]