Cardinal George Alencherry, head of the Syro-Malabar Church has termed as “a shame” the increasing cases of wild animals killing humans in the southern Indian state of Kerala.
“Incidents of wild animals entering villages and killing and injuring humans are on the rise,” laments the cardinal’s May 19 press statement that cited wild buffalos killing three people on May 18 at different places in the state.
A farmer Thomas Plavanakuzhili, a resident of Erumeli Kannamela area, was attacked by a wild buffalo when he was in his rubber plantation.
One Chackochan was attacked by another wild buffalo when he was sitting on the verandah of his house. Around the same time, Samuel Varghese, a resident of Kollam Anchal, was killed in a wild buffalo attack.
“Similar incidents are happening in many places. This is an absolute disgrace to a civilized society,” said the cardinal’s statement.
The prelate wants the government to take immediate steps to control wild animals that threaten humans and protect human life.
“The complacency of those responsible in this regard is objectionable. It is unjustifiable to deny humans the respect, and protection that is given to wild animals.”
The cardinal wants the government to make the necessary legislation instead of issuing regular statements announcing meager financial aid.
“Legal measures taken in other developed countries to protect wild animals and control the dangerous increase in their numbers should be a model for our country,” he added.
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10 people arrested on conversion charges in India
Police arrested 10 people under the stringent anti-conversion law after a raid on a Christian prayer gathering in a central Indian state.
Some 70 Christians had gathered at a private residence in Kotwali in the Shahdol district of Madhya Pradesh state on May 13 when a police team arrived and stopped their prayer meeting alleging “religious conversion activity.”
“Our people were arrested after branding the routine prayer meeting as a conversion activity,” a pastor speaking on condition of anonymity said on May 15.
Police also seized copies of the Bible and other documents from the residence. The 10 people who were arrested were produced before a court and remanded in judicial custody.
“We are confident our innocence will be proved in the court of law and our people will be released from prison,” the pastor said, adding such raids on prayer gatherings inside houses and arrests of the Christians had become a trend in Madhya Pradesh.
The state government is run by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The raid and arrests were initiated by the police on the basis of a complaint filed by Ashram Baiga, who is from a local indigenous community.
Baiga alleged that the arrested people had offered him 100,000 rupees (US$820) to convert him to Christianity.
The police arrested those they believed to be the leaders of the group and also filed cases against 12 others for violating various provisions of the state’s sweeping anti-conversion law passed in 2021.
The Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 2021, prohibits unlawful conversion from one religion to another by use of misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, any other fraudulent means, and allurement. Violators face a prison term of up to 10 years.
The law is often used to target Christians and their prayer gatherings held in remote parts of the state.
The law also criminalizes inter-religious marriages, especially between Christians and Muslim men marrying Hindu girls, without prior approval from the government.
‘Hidden agendas’ behind ethnic conflict in Indian state
Divisive ideologies and agendas are the root cause of an ethnic conflict that has led to violence against Christians and attacks on churches in India’s northeastern state of Manipur, said Indian Archbishop Dominic Lumon of Imphal, the state’s capital city.
“Hidden agendas and ideologies contrary to the constitutional and demo-cratic values often infiltrate into the region and the state which jeopardizes the peaceful coexistence and religious harmony of the state and the region,” Archbishop Lumon told on May 24.
“Outside forces with hidden agendas to disturb communal harmony and vested interests have to be recognized and resi-sted,” he said.
The violence began in early May when ethnic tribal groups, primarily Christian, protested against a High Court decision granting “Scheduled Tribe” status to the majority Meithei Hindu community.
Scheduled Tribes are Indigenous tribal groups that are given reservation status under India’s constitution. Traditionally disadvantaged communities recognized as Scheduled Tribes are guaranteed political representation, and receive benefits such as education and employment.
Answering questions from OSV News via email, Archbishop Lumon explained that opposition to the Meithei community’s inclusion in the list of Scheduled Tribes also would grant them the right to own land in ethnic tribal areas and is an issue that is at the “heart of the violence in Manipur.”
He also cited disparity in land distribution and in political representation in favor of the Meithei community as reasons for escalating tensions in the region. According to UCA News, recent riots claimed the lives of over 70 people and left tens of thousands of people displaced.
Anger toward tribal Christians and their opposition toward the Meithei’s granting of reservation status has led to attacks on homes and Christian places of worship, the archbishop said.
Archbishop Lumon told OSV News that Manipur is a multi-ethnic state of many cultural and religious groups and that the only way it can move past the violence is if its people “learn to embrace a common brotherhood and peaceful coexistence.”
Nigeria: Suspected Fulani militia kill 100 in ongoing attacks
The bodies of Nigerians kill-ed in a May 15-16 terror attack are piled in a mass grave, and will soon be buried.
The killings come amid years of violence in northern and central Nigeria, perpetrated by Muslim Fulani herding com-munities and Islamist terrorist groups, the victims are mostly Christian farming villages in the agricultural Middle Belt of north-central Nigeria.
In a statement after the May 16 attack, Solomon Maren, a lawmaker in Nigeria’s National Assem-bly, explained that most of those who died in the violence this week were women and children.
Maren urged Nigeria’s federal government to take seriously requests for increased security in the region.
“I urge the president to order the security agencies to move into the area with immediate effect to curb the killings, as well as for the National Emergency Management Authority and other well-spirited organizations to also move in with relief materials for the wounded and survivors of the dastardly act,” he said Tuesday.
Patrick Toholde, a regional councilor in the local Mangu government, told Nigerian media that before his constituents were attacked, “locals were going about with their normal busi-nesses until yesterday morning.”
On May 16th morning, he said, “they saw an influx of Fulani herdsmen from neighboring villages moving their cattle and belongings, then the resident Fulanis followed suit.” The Fulani herders “went and camped between Washna and Kombili villages before launching the attack” on nine different commu-nities, Tohold explained.
Government officials have said it is not clear what prompted the recent attacks, but Toholde explained that the violence was “deliberate, as it was well coordinated and executed despite security presence.”
Most churchgoers don’t believe political divides in church are worsening
Today, Public Religion Re-search Institute (PRRI) released a new survey report finding that church attendance and the im-portance of religion continue to decline among most Americans. “Religion and Congregations in a Time of Social and Political Upheaval,” details the findings of a national survey examining the health of American religious congregations in the wake of seismic social and political shifts, including the COVID-19 pan-demic, nationwide protests for racial justice, the 2020 election and January 6 insurrection, and ongoing legislative battles over reproductive and LGBTQ rights.
Today, fewer than 2 in 10 Americans (16%) say religion is the most important thing in their lives; notably that number more than doubles for white evangeli-cal Protestants (42%) and Black Protestants (38%). Nearly 1 in 3 Americans overall (29%) say religion is not important, a 10% increase from a decade ago.
Current attendance at religi-ous services is lower than report-ed in 2019 before COVID-19, with the number of Americans who attend once a week decreas-ing from 19% to 16%. Between 2019-2022, attendance at least a few times a year dropped to half or less for white Catholics (73% to 45%) and Hispanic Catholics (65% to 47%). While more than 6 out of 10 white evangelical Protestants, Protestants of color, and Latter-day Saints remain regular churchgoers, their atten-dance also experienced slight declines since 2019. Attendance had dropped below 50% prior to 2019 for white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants and non-Christian religions, and attend-ance for those groups experienced further declines over the past three years.
Yet among the faithful, Chri-stian churchgoers are satisfied with their current congregations; more than 8 in 10 churchgoers (82%) say they are optimistic about the future of their church. This optimism spans across Christian denominations. Nearly 9 in 10 Christians who attend church services at least a few times a year (89%) are proud to say that they are associated with their church.
While the political landscape has become increasingly polari-zed, and 4 in 10 churchgoers report that hot-button political and social issues like abortion and racism are discussed in their churches, fewer than 2 in 10 churchgoers (13%) say that their church is more politically divided than it was five years ago. Only a slightly higher amount (18%) wants their church to address political divisions in America.
Scorsese says answering pope’s call, will make Jesus film
Italo-American director Martin Scorsese told the Jesuits’ international magazine in Rome on May 27 that he had decided to answer Pope Francis’s recent call to show Jesus to the cinema-going public. “I’ve responded to the appeal which the pope made to artists in the only way I know how: imagining and writing a screenplay for a film about Jesus, and I’m set to start making it,” said the 80-year-old Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas dir-ector, who made the controver-sial Last Temptation of Christ in 1988. Speaking as a guest of twice-monthly Jesuit publication La Civiltà Cattollica, Scorsese, who has Sicilian-born grandpa-rents on both sides, told editor-in-chief Father Antonio Spadaro: “I’ve answered the pope’s call to make us see Jesus,” The great director, who won an Oscar for The Departed in 2006, spoke freely about his life and work for a major interview with the Jesuit organ.
Belgian Bp : Our Decision to Bless Same-Sex Unions Is “Not Going Against the Pope”
The bishop of Antwerp, Belgium, said that because Pope Francis has not voiced his opposition specifically to the Flemish bishops’ decision to bless same-sex unions, he has taken that as tacit approval for their action.
Bishop Johan Bonny said in a May 17 interview with Katholi-sch.de that he had had “two conversations” with Francis from which he inferred he knew that he and his brother bishops were “not going against the Pope.”
The Flemish ordinary said he was not allowed to share the precise contents of those conversations, but stressed that knowing the Pope’s stance was “very important for me and for the other bishops in Flanders.”
Bishop Bonny and the other Flemish bishops of Belgium introduced a blessing for same-sex couples in September 2022, pu-blishing a handout containing a suggested liturgy and prayers and basing their argument on Pope Francis’ 2016 apostolic exhortation on the 2014-2015 Synod on the Family, Amoris Laetitia.
German dioceses persist with laity role in governance
Two German dioceses are forging ahead with lay participation in Church governance, despite warnings from the Vatican.
The dioceses have begun to put reforms proposed by the German synodal path initiative into practice, especially that of involving the laity in governance.
In the Diocese of Osnabrück, which has been vacant since the Pope accepted Bishop Franz-Josef Bode’s resignation in March, talks have begun between the nine priest members of the cathedral chapter and nine lay Catholics.
The Osnabrück diocese has thereby adopted a model developed by the neighbouring Archdiocese of Paderborn. The diocesan Catholic Council, or “Katholikenrat”, which represents lay Catholics in the diocese, selected nine lay members keeping strictly to a generation- and gender-equitable method.
This 18-member group will now discuss the profile of the future bishop and exchange opinions on possible named persons. These talks will continue until the summer holidays and are strictly confidential.
On the basis of the talks the cathedral chapter will then draw up a list of names which the cathedral chapter will then send to the Vatican via the apostolic nuncio in Berlin, Archbishop Nikola Eterovic.
The Vatican will then choose three names – the so-called terna – from the list and the Osnabrück chapter alone and not the nine members of the laity, will choose one of them as future bishop.
Arunachal Church opens deaddiction center for girls
In its efforts to fight drug and substance abuse among young people in Arunachal Pradesh, the diocese of Miao has opened a deaddiction facility for girls and women.
“Drug menace is a big problem across Arunachal Pradesh and it feeds on the future prospects of the nation,” said Bishop George Pallipparambil of Miao, who on May 24 opened the Auxilium Wellness Centre at Namphai II in Changlang district.
The Salesian prelate described the center as “a dream-come-true project for all the people of Arunachal Pradesh, especially in the eastern part. We hope this facility for girls will not only bring people out of addiction but also contribute to the overall health of the people all over Arunachal Pradesh.” According to a latest national survey, Namsai, Lohit, Dibang Valley, Upper Siang, Anjaw, Tirap and West Kameng in Arunachal Pradesh are among the 272 worst drug-abuse districts in the country.
Speaking at the function, the chief guest, Ibom Tao, the Additional Deputy Commissioner of Miao, said, “Drug and opium abuse is destroying our society and this center is a need of the hour because there are so many addicted people here.”
Bishops play it safe, offer no clear vision for Asia
Fifty years of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC) and its sterling contri-bution deserved to be celebrated. The event held in Bangkok over a span of 18 days last October was graced by a large number of Church leaders, representatives of the people of God, and a host of experts.
This momentous occasion provided an opportunity to envi-sion the future of FABC’s service and renew its commitment to its mission in these critical times. Like the previous ones, the assembly in Bangkok exuded an atmosphere of friendship, bon-homie, and pastoral and cultural exchange. The much-awaited final document was officially released on March 15.
Reading through it, I found it challenging to identify a clear vision that holds together the enti-re document, lending it strength and consistency. The absence of a unified vision is palpable in the whole document. There is an attempt to give some semblance of cohesion by resorting to the biblical narrative of the visit of the three Magi and referencing various moments of their journey. While analogies and metaphors can be helpful to a certain extent, relying solely on them may risk appearing superficial and merely attempting to fill gaps in the document.
One would expect that there would be an effort to recall and reassess the significant steps FABC had taken in the past, its vision, orientation, and build upon the achievements already made.