The head of the Catholic Church in India on March 20 urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to invite Pope Francis to visit the country. “The Prime Minister reacted positively to this desire of the whole Catholic community,” Cardinal Oswald Gracias, president of Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), told media persons after his meeting with Modi.

The Cardinal, one of the eight top advisors of Pope Francis, was elected the CBCI president, during the biennial plenary of the conference in early February at Bengaluru. This was his first meeting with the Prime Minister in his new capacity.

Cardinal Gracias described the meeting was “open, cordial and frank” and it helped the two leaders to know each other better.

The Cardinal had a one-to-one session with the Prime Minister, said Monsignor Joseph Chinnayyan, CBCI deputy secretary general, who accompanied the Cardinal. “This was the first time a Church leader has such meeting with the Prime Minister. Normally, we meet the Prime Minister or the president in groups,” he added.

The Prime Minister promised to find a suitable time slot for the Pope’s visit as scores of world leaders plan to visit India this year.

Pope Francis had expressed his desire to visit India several times last year. He repeated it in March when a minister from Kerala called on the Pope.

Cardinal Gracias also brought to the Prime Minister’s attention the growing anxiety among Christians over “sporadic attacks on minority institutions and personnel in different parts of the country.” “We are small community but our contribution to nation building is between 15 to 20%” the Cardinal repeated what he told the preminer.

A recent article in a Vatican magazine on widespread exploitation of nuns in the Catholic Church has found many takers in India, home to the world’s largest number of women religious. “A welcome statement but late in coming,” Sister Teresa Kotturan, former vice president of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, reacted to the March 1 article in the monthly, “Women, Church, World.”

Fr Paul Thelakat, who has arbitrated several disputes between nuns and priests in Kerala, southern India, too says the “cry of the magazine from Rome is too late.”

Nevertheless, the fact that an official Vatican publication has “come out with some painful truth within the Church” has cheered Presentation Sister Shalini Mulackal, the first woman to head the male-dominated Indian Theological Association. The article in the monthly women’s magazine of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano is based on the comments of several unnamed nuns. It describes the drudgery of nuns who work as cooks, cleaners, waiters on tables for cardinals, bishops and priests. It also narrates how some work in the residences of “men of the Church, waking at dawn to prepare breakfast and going to sleep once dinner is served.”

They also keep the house of priests and bishops in order and clean and iron the laundry for them for “random and often modest” remuneration. The situation is no better in India where patriarchal norms and culture in the Church and society shackle women religious, says Sister Kotturan, who once headed the Indian province of the congregation based in Kentucky, United States. She is currently the NGO Representative at the UN Sisters of Charity Federation.

The Syrian Mar Thoma Church and the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church on March 22 lashed out at the Pinarayi Vijayan government in Kerala for deciding to open closed liquor vends.

The Kerala Catholic Bishop’s Conference (KCBC) had also slammed the “liquor policy” of the Vijayan government.

The Church heads have said that the government was operating on the sly to open new liquor vends, bars and toddy shops, riding on the Supreme Court verdict.

In 2016, when the Oommen Chandy-led Congress government demitted office, there were two dozen bars that operated in five-star hotels, while around 700 bars in the three-and four-star hotels were shut down.

Chandy’s policy envisaged prohibition in Kerala by 2023.

In the Vijayan government’s tenure so far, under the Supreme Court directives, there are close to 200 outlets, including four-star hotel bars and wine and beer parlours open in the state and according to reports from the state excise department another 150 bars are going to open soon.

The Thiruvalla headquartered Syrian Mar Thoma Church chief Joseph Mar Thoma Metropolitan said that it is unfortunate that the very same people who spoke about practicing the policy of abstinence are doing exactly the opposite.

With a sizeable Mar Thoma community in Chengannur constituency, Joseph Mar Thoma Metropolitan said that he will direct his community to exercise their franchise according to their conscience.

Mor Coorilose Gee-varghese, head of the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, Niranam dio-cese, said that he failed to understand the logic of this Left government in coming out with this sort of policy, when there is a crucial assembly by-election coming up.

Stung by a very strong response from the Catholic Church to its liquor policy, the Kerala government on March 18 made it clear that they are open to any sort of discussion on it to make their stand clear.

Talking to media persons here, state Excise Minister T.P.Ramakrishnan said that he is willing to speak to any person or organisations who have doubts about the new liquor policy.

“We are going forward on the liquor policy that we spelled out in our manifesto. We assure all that we will not open a single new bar, liquor vend or toddy shop. All what we did was to follow the Supreme Court’s directives, which we are bound to do.

“No one need to have any concern and our policy on liquor is to foll-ow the policy of abstinence and not head towards prohibition… that’s what we have said in our election manifesto,” he said.

On march 17, heads of various churches attached to the Kerala Catholic Bishops Conference (KCBC) slammed the Left Democratic Front government’s liquor policy, threatening it would work against its candidate in the upcoming Chengannur by-poll.

Various Church leaders accused the Vijayan government is operating on sly to open new liquor vends, bars and toddy shops, riding on court verdicts.

The state government’s offer for dialogue came, as along with the KCBC, both the Congress and the BJP began attacking the Left government ahead of the Chengannur assembly by-election, winning which is a prestige issue for the government.