An ashram started by a group of nuns in southern Indian town has completed 25 years promoting interfaith harmony. The Franciscan Missionaries of Mary congregation founded the Ishalaya Ashram in 2000 at Palamaner in Andhra Pradesh state in response to the Second Vatican Council’s recommendation to reach out to people of other faiths. The ashram was an answer to the congregation’s 1978 General Chapter that called for integrating intercultural elements into the Franciscan spirituality, says Sister Vimala Varapragasam, the vice president of the National Ashram Aikya, an association of Catholic priests and nuns who have opted to live like hermits. She recounted how in the 1980’s her congregation engaged in interfaith dialogue meetings to proclaim Christ’s uniqueness and universality amid diverse faiths. Strengthening this dialogue, they immersed in local communities, learning customs and traditions, and fostering communal harmony. Mobilizing children and women, they imparted values promoting self-confidence, neighborliness, sharing, and cleanliness, Sister Vimala explained. Through this, the nuns embraced a simpler life and experienced the warm hospitality from those they served, said the nun, who has lived in the ashram for more than a decade. “My inspiration stems from the words of our founder, Blessed Mary of the Passion: ‘Be like the little sanctuary lamp that burns itself quietly. She said she did not choose the religious life to become a teacher, accountant, or administrator. “Rather, my calling is to dwell in the presence of the Lord and to serve His people—individuals of goodwill from all faiths,” This journey leads them to care not only their fellow beings but the environment.”India has 50 Catholic ashrams dedicated to prayer and spiritual experiences. They are organized by the wing of National Ashram Aikya. Ashramites opt for a modest lifestyle marked by austerity, adhere to vegetarianism, and wholeheartedly embrace people from all religious backgrounds, Sister Vimala explained.
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North Bengal Salesian College given UN agency certificate
A Salesian college in West Bengal has received a certificate of recognition from the United Nations Association for Develop-ment and Peace (UNADAP). “This accolade is awarded to Salesian College (Autonomous) Siliguri, India, in recognition of conducting the Salesian Model United Nations under the theme: United Nations Sustainable De-velopment Goal 2 – Zero Hunger, held April 13-15 at Siliguri,” reads the citation. UNADAP executive director Dominic F. Dixon, who inaugurated the event and participated in the proceed-ings, was the chief guest at the closing ceremony during which he handed over the certificate to Salesian Father Babu Joseph, principal of Salesian College Siliguri and Sonada in northern Bengal. The certificate signed and sealed by Dixon further reads, “Salesian College’s mission, hard work, dedication, and per- severance of its prin-cipals and faculty members and its vi-brant student com-munity since 1938 have been instrumental in gaining autono-mous status for Salesian College, and we are honoured to recognise its accomplishments.” More than 160 delegates from 18 schools participated in the third Salesian Model United Nations (SMUN) organised by students.
The delegates were divided into seven committees: United Nation’s Security Council; UN Human Rights Council; UN Commission on the Status of Women; UN General Assembly on Disarmament and International Security Council; All India Political Parties Meet; Viceroy’s Partition Council; and International Press Corps (IPC). Speaking at the concluding ceremony, Dixon offered UNADAP internships, a 7-week Masterclass on “Business and International Relations” as well as a second 7-week online course on “Spirit of Excellence, to students.”The suggestions from SMUN 2024 on Zero Hunger will be submitted to the UNADAP.
India told to scrap anti-conversion laws after polls
A UK-based Christian advocacy group has urged India to repeal the sweeping anti-conversion laws enacted by about a dozen states after the national polls. Release International, which supports persecuted Churches worldwide, said: “We have seen a dramatic rise in intolerance towards Christians since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) first came to power in 2014.” Eleven Indian states, most of them ruled by the BJP of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have in place anti-conversion laws. Polls to the Indian parliament’s lower house (Lok Sabha) are being conducted in seven phases, starting April 19. The results will be declared on June 4.
Paul Robinson, chief executive officer of Release International, urged India to act immediately to halt the spread of intolerance and repeal anti-conversion laws after the polls. The anti-conversion laws prohibit change of religion or any attempt to convert from one religion to another through misrepresentation, use of threat or force, fraud, undue influence, coercion, allurement, or marriage. These laws fly in the face of India’s constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion, Robinson noted on April 15.”
These laws prevent Christians from sharing their faith with others.” The anti-conversion law is in full force in these three states. ”What we’re seeing in India is the rise in right-wing militancy, underpinned by intolerance from the state,” added Robinson. Release International has a presence in 25 countries across the globe.
Court-appointed judges to run Church of South India
A court has appointed two retired judges to administer the finances and all temporal goods of the crisis-ridden Church of South India (CSI), asking them to oversee the formation of a new synod, the Church’s top decision-making body. Justices R Balasu-bramanian and V Bharathidasan reached the CSI headquarters in Chennai, the capital of southern Tamil Nadu state, on April 18 and took over the administration of the church, which has 24 dioceses in India and Sri Lanka. The Madras High Court, based in Chennai, appointed the judges on April 12 following admini-strative disputes. The court-appointed administrators will continue until a fresh synod is elected, the court said. The court asked the administrators “to ensure that the elections for all the Diocesan Councils are con-ducted and representatives of the Synod are also elected by the respective Diocesan Councils and a special meeting of the Synod is convened at the earliest possible opportunity to elect new office bearers of the Synod.” In 2022, the laity moved the high court against former moderator Bishop Dharmaraj Rasalam. The high court removed him from the mo-derator post in September last year. The petitioners have accused him and the Synod under him of arbitrarily amending the Church’s constitution and being involved in corruption and other irregulari-ties. The petitioners said ten cri-minal cases were pending against the moderator, and his continuance in the office would not be appro-priate. They expressed their ina-bility to remove him from office because the Church lacked a law to remove a moderator. The CSI was formed in 1947 after India’s independence from Britain as a union of all Protestant denominations.
Voters Abstain From Polls In India’s Christian-majority State
People in six districts of the Christian-majority Nagaland state in India’s northeast refused to vote in the ongoing national election to stress their demand for a separate state. The Eastern Nagaland People’s Organisation (ENPO), comprising seven tribal bodies in Nagaland, had urged people in six districts not to vote in the polls on April 19. “The demand by the ENPO is genuine,” said Paul Magh of the North Eastern Regional Youth Commission. The ENPO influences Kiphire, Longleng, Mon, Noklak, Shamator and Tuensang districts, which have nearly half a million voters. Magh told UCA News on April 22 that the voters believed that the demand for a separate state was justified as the government did not do justice to them in terms of development. He said ENPO had held talks with the government to chalk out a unique arrangement called ‘Frontier Naga Territory’ within the state with a separate legislature and financial powers. “They believe if they were given a separate state, their life would be better,” said Magh, a Catholic lay leader. Ahead of the polls, the ENPO declared a “public emergency” in six districts and prohibited candidates from campaigning. Chumben Murry of the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party and Supongmeren Jamir of the Congress party were the candidates in Nagaland’s lone parlia-mentary constituency. However, overall voter turnout in the state, comprising 16 districts, stood at 56 percent compared with 83.08 percent in the 2019 polls. Starting April 19, India’s general elections will be conducted in seven phases. The results will be declared on June 4. The demand for autonomy for six districts figured prominently at last year’s assembly polls in February.
Sipri: Never Before Has Arms Expenditure Been So High In Asia
In 2023, the greatest growth of the last decade was recorded in terms of global military spending, which reached its historic high for a total sum of 2.4 trillion dollars driven by Asia-Pacific tensions (Taiwan ) and the conflict between Israel and Hamas (as well as Iran).
This is the data from the latest report published on April 22 by Sipri (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute), from which another interesting fact also emerges: the greatest increases at a geographical level concerned Asia, the Middle East and partly the Europe due to the war between Russia and Ukraine which has been dragging on for over two years.
“Total military spending is at an all-time high” senior researcher Sipri Nan Tian underlines to AFP, according to which “we have witnessed an increase in spending in all five geographical regions.”
In numerical terms, the in-crease in military spending is 6.8% and represents “the most significant on an annual basis since 2009” as the expert adds. “[This increase] is a reflection of the deterioration – he adds – of peace and security in the world,” also because “there is no region in which the situation has improved.” At country level, among the top five for military spending in the annual Sipri report are: United States, China, Russia, India and Saudi Arabia.
Japanese Woman Is Baptized After Witnessing How Her Catholic Husband Lived With Faith His Cancer
Junko Kusanagi is a Japanese woman who for 49 years lived without having a significant experience that would lead her to have a deep faith. However, the illness of her husband, who is Catholic, led her to consider faith more than ever as a necessary element in her life. Junko says she attended a Catholic school and university, but never took much interest in the faith. When she was about to marry her current husband, he revealed to her that he was Catholic, and she mentions that perhaps if she had not had a previous experience with Catholicism, she would likely have reacted more hostilely to this statement. However, her previous contact with Catholicism allowed her to not have such a repulsive reaction to her husband’s faith.
Sometime later, when they had their son, Junko’s husband expressed his desire to have him baptized as a Catholic, to which she was at first a bit hesitant to do so. She decided to consult with her husband’s sister who told her that she had always felt God’s presence in her life because she had been baptized as a child, and this motivated Junko to accept the baptism of her son. The baptism took place and Junko remembers her husband telling her that he was very happy because even if something happened to them, their son would be in good hands because God would be with him. Junko mentions that her life went smoothly until October 2022 when her husband told her that he had just been diagnosed with cancer. At that time, she became so worried about the future of her husband and family that she went into shock.
In contrast, her husband was very composed, which impressed her. She asked him how he could be so calm, to which he replied, “I’m fine. God is always here”.
From that moment on she discovered something she had never seen in the person of her husband, a faith that she had interpreted simply as something that made her husband a “calm and ordinary” person, but at that moment she realized that his faith was so great even to be fearless, even though the future was uncertain. This began to make her rethink her position on faith. Upon realizing this situation and together with the desire to walk alongside her husband in this difficulty, she decided that she wanted to be baptized. She discussed this with her husband who was glad that he had become ill because it brought her to a deepening of the faith, he had always believed in.
Thus, Junko began her journey to the Church and among other things she is grateful to the parish community are the accompaniment and the availability to be with her and accompany her in this difficult time. Since they had moved house, she had no friends with whom she could talk or feel accompanied, but in the church community there is always someone to listen to her. Junko was baptized at the Easter Vigil at the Sekimac church.
Colombo, Still No Justice On The Fifth Anniversary Of The Easter Attacks
On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the Easter attacks, the Catholic Church of Sri Lanka has organized various religious celebrations and is preparing to name martyrs the faithful killed in the attacks which targeted three churches and two hotels. According to the most recent investigation into the tragedy, over 300 people, including 40 foreigners and 45 children, lost their lives on 21 April 2019, the worst massacre to occur in Sri Lanka since the civil war.
Lahore, Forced Conversions: Attempted Poisoning Of A 13-year-old Christian
Yet another attempt at forced conversion has occurred in Pa-kistan against a 13-year-old Chri-stian boy, forced to ingest a toxic substance after refusing to em-brace Islam.
The episode occurred in the city of Lahore on April 13: Saim had left home to go get a haircut, but was stopped by a Muslim se-curity guard who noticed that the boy had a cross around his neck. The guard, named Qadar Khan, snatched the necklace and forced Saim to recite an Islamic prayer, but the boy refused, saying he was Christian. The man then forced Saim to ingest a toxic substance in an attempt to poison him.
It was the young man’s parents who found their son’s body unconscious after several hours that Saim was missing from home. The father, Liyaqat Randhava, went to the police but said he had received unfair treatment.
The officers registered the complaint only after several in-sistences and a copy of the docu-ment was not released to Saim’s family, he said. Furthermore, se-veral parts of the story were not included in the complaint.
(also called first information report or FIR).
Joseph Johnson, president of Voice for Justice, expressed deep concern about the growing incidents of forced religious conversions in Pakistan and condemned what happened to Saim, adding that the police were showing extreme negligence in the case. “By failing to include crucial details in the FIR, the police subjected Saim and his family to further abuse,” Johnson said, calling for government intervention in an investigation.
Asian Bishops’ Climate Change Desk Holds Ecology Conference
More than 30 church workers from various bishops’ conferences in Asia on April 15 ended a three-day workshop on building climate-resilient communities.
The workshop, organized by the Office of Human Development – Climate Change Desk (OHD-CCD) of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC), was hosted by Caritas Philippines in Tagaytay City, the Philippines. Participants engaged in thorough discussions on prevailing climate trends and the sustainability issues facing the region. They also shared best practices and action plans in battling the impacts of the climate crisis.
Bishop Allwyn D’Silva of Bombay, chairperson of the OHD-CCD, said the Catholic Church must get “more involved” in various environmental concerns because “Asia is a home to many of the countries that are vulner-able to climate change.” The prelate challenged churches in Asia to “build up a network” of advocates and “like-minded act-ors” to spearhead climate actions, all dedicated to fostering climate-resilient communities.
During the workshop, Dr. Benedict Alo D’Rozario, president of Caritas Asia, discussed how the Catholic Church’s social action and humanitarian arms are trying to collectively defend and empower communities against the impacts of the ecological crisis.