The Catholic Church in India should seriously address the existence of casteism within its fold as it organizes a national thanksgiving prayer for Saint Devasahayam, says the Dalit Christian Liberation Movement.
The Church in India will on June 24 hold the prayer service from the tomb of the newly canonized India’s first lay person at St Francis Xavier’s Cathedral of Kottar, Tamil Nadu.
An open letter from the Dalit movement agrees to celebrate Devasahayam’s canonization is quite fitting, but what is “more important and necessary is to invoke the true spirit of his martyrdom.”
The June 23 letter signed by M. Mary John, the movement’s president, urges the Church not to treat the thanksgiving “only as a spiritual exercise or religious ritual” but as an occasion to introspect about the conti-nuing oppression and discrimination of its Dalit members.
“This occasion should be a call to the Catholic Church to stop this. This is also important in the context of the call by Pope Francis for Synodality in the Church,” it adds.
John says the saint was martyred because he converted to Christianity defying the then prevailing oppressive and discriminating caste system. Saint Devasahayam became “a true witness” to Christ’s values and mission.
“He stood up firmly against the caste hegemony of the ruling class of the then kingdom of Travancore in South India,” the letter explains.
The movement says Devasahayam was martyred for the same cause that the movement now demands.
The global Christian community, it says, is ignorant about continuation of the caste oppression and discrimination even three centuries after Devasahayam’s times and that its “worst victim” is the Dalit Christians.
“But even after so many years, casteism, caste oppression and discrimination continues in the Catholic Church itself, which need to be challenged on this occasion,” the letter asserts.
The letter further says the movement has raised this issue “vociferously in recent times. But this truth will be suppressed and hidden by the glitters of the celebration, liturgical services and rituals scheduled to be led by the top members of India’s Catholic hierarchy.”
It wants the hierarchy in India to use the thanksgiving occasion to own up the existence of casteism in the Church and resolve to take steps to eradicate it.