In a new interview, Pope Francis has discussed the possibility of revising the Western discipline of priestly celibacy.
“There is no contradiction for a priest to marry. Celibacy in the Western Church is a temporary prescription: I do not know if it is settled in one way or another, but it is temporary in this sense,” Pope Francis said in an interview published on March 10.
“It is not eternal like priestly ordination, which is forever, whether you like it or not. Whether you leave or not is another matter, but it is forever. On the other hand, celibacy is a discipline.”
When asked by the Argentine journalist Daniel Hadad if celibacy “could be review-ed,” Pope Francis responded: “Yes, yes. In fact, everyone in the Eastern Church is ma-rried. Or those who want to. There they make a choice. Before ordination there is the choice to marry or to be celibate,” according to a transcript provided by Infobae.
In response to the interviewer’s inquiry if the pope thought that making celibacy opt-ional would lead more people to join the priesthood, Pope Francis said: “I do not think so,” noting that there are already married priests in the Catholic Church in the Eastern rites.
The pope added that earlier that day he had met with an Eastern Catholic priest who works in the Roman Curia who has a wife and a son.
Pope Francis has spoken about the value of priestly celibacy before. In January 2019 he said: “Personally, I think that celibacy is a gift to the Church. I would say that I do not agree with allowing optional celibacy, no.”
The pope added at the time that he thinks there is room to consider some exceptions for married clergy in the Latin rite “when there is a pastoral necessity” in remote locations due to a lack of priests, such as in the Pacific islands.
The nearly one-hour-long interview published Friday with Infobae, a Miami-based Spanish-language online news outlet, also touched on Daniel Ortega’s dictatorship in Nicaragua, drug trafficking in Latin America, the war in Ukraine, and marriage annulments.
When speaking of annulments, Pope Francis advised to look to what his prede-cessor Benedict XVI had said on the subject and said that “a large part of church marriages are invalid for lack of faith.”
“And think about it: Sometimes [one] goes to a wedding and it seems more like it’s a social reception and not a sacrament,” Pope Francis said.
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Catholic school principal arrested; priest, nun on the run
Leaders of the Jabalpur Catholic diocese have denied the allegation which they say is a conspiracy to tarnish the image of a Church institution that serves the poor.
The court in tribal dominated Dindori district of Madhya Pradesh state on March 7 remanded Nam Singh Yadav, principal of the diocesan higher secondary school. Dindori is some 140 km southeast of Jabalpur, the diocesan headquarters, and 460 km east of Bhopal, the state capital.
Catholic nuns among women awarded for post Covid works
Three Catholic nuns were among 33 outstanding women entrepreneurs awarded for successfully fighting Covid pandemic with business plans.
The awardees were selected from among 1,408 women supported by Functional Vocational Training and Research Society (FVTRS) through Child Fund and City Bank to rebuild people’s lives after the pandemic.
Plot suspected in sex claims against Indian school principal
Police in central India have re-arrested a lay Catholic school principal accused of sexually assaulting young girls, which local people say is part of a conspiracy to deny education to tribal people. Nam Singh Yadav was arrested and detained in judicial custody on March 7, three days after he and three others — a Catholic nun, priest and another lay male teacher — were accused of violating the rights of children.
American evangelist attracts thousands in Vietnam
An estimated 14,000 Christians in southern Vietnam attended a historic religious event organized by an American evangelist association in Ho Chi Minh City.
People including government officials from the city and neighbouring provinces attended the Spring Love Festival held by the US-based Billy Graham Evangelistic Association at the Phu Tho Sports Facility on Mar. 4-5.
Reverend Franklin Graham, president and CEO of the association told the crowds that “God makes and creates you and loves you and Vietnam. Jesus is in the city tonight.”
Each day some 7,000 people attended public Bible talks and Gospel singing, local media said.
Graham said he was in the Southeast Asian country at the invitation of local churches.
More than 900 pastors and church leaders from 60 denominations worked together for the event. This was the first time “so many denominational leaders had been under one roof,” the association claimed on its website.
Before the event, Graham reportedly met with Deputy Prime Minister Le Minh Khai and other officials to discuss the diversity of religions and support for religious freedom in the country.
No government can stop good works: Bangalore archbishop
Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore says the Church will continue to do its good works without fear.
“Even if a case is filed against me, accusing me of indulging in conversion, for providing education and healthcare to the Dalits and the marginalized, I would continue with those good works,” Archbishop Machado asserted.
The archbishop is the leader of the Catholic Church in the southern Indian state of Karnataka that has enacted anti-conversion law last year. He also heads the All Karnataka United Christian Forum for Human Rights, an ecumenical body.
“No government can stop us from doing good works; no one can challenge us,” the 68-year-old prelate asserted.
He challenged the government to come out with the data on the number of children converted in Christian educational institutions.
The archbishop was speaking at a function to felicitate Baselios Marthoma Mathews III, the Catholicos of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, in Bengaluru, the state capital.
With a few months left for the Assembly elections in Karnataka, the archbishop’s speech is seen as a sign of the community’s approach to the ruling party and the government’s policies against Christians.
Archbishop Machado slammed the fundamentalists for playing petty politics and spreading fake news that teaching the Bible has been made compulsory at Clarence school in Bengaluru.
Earlier, the archbishop had called the anti-conversion law “dangerous” and termed it a “sad chapter for the Christian community.”
He had also written to Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai appealing not to promote the “undesirable and discriminatory” Bill.
According to the new law, any converted person, his parents, brother, sister, or any other person who is related to him by blood, marriage, adoption, or in any form associated, or colleague may lodge a complaint of illegal religious conversion. The offense is non-bailable.
The bill prohibits unlawful conversion of religion, providing protection to those who were forced to convert from one religion to another by misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement, the promise of marriage, or by any fraudulent means and for the matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
Ecolink awards outstanding women
An institute that trains addiction professionals globally has honored two of its alumna who have excelled in prevention and management of substance use disorder in Africa and India.
Ecolink Training Institute, which has trained more than 300 addiction professionals from 20 countries in the past three years, awarded Odireleng Kasale, a recovery professional from Botswana, and Devika Rani, prevention expert from India’s Hyderabad, in a virtual meeting held on March 9.
Kasale, a recovering person herself who was trained in the Ecolink Institute in the Universal Treatment Curriculum on Substance Use Disorder in 2020, said she could carry out a successful recovery program in her country by networking with several young men and women who was struggling with drugs.
Also, a consultative committee member of World Health Organization and a trainer in Recovery Coaching in her country, Kasale has contributed to the policy formation and professionalizing the addiction management in her country.
Kasale and Devika were awarded with a citation and certificate, besides a one-year free package on advanced training in various curricula related to addiction management from Ecolink Institute.
Ban demanded on play “insulting” Catholic monastic life
Catholic bishops of the southern Indian state of Kerala have demanded a ban on a stage show that they say insults Ca-tholic monastic life and Chri-stianity.
“The communist organiza-tions are giving huge publicity for the drama,” says a state-ment issued by the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC), referring to the Ma-layalam play, “Kakkukali” that describes the alleged trials and tribulations of a woman who becomes a nun despite her Co-mmunist father’s opposition.
However, those behind the drama term it as an expression of freedom. The drama is an adaptation of a short story written by Francis Norona. It was scripted by K B Ajayaku-mar and directed by Job Ma-dathil.
It was staged by Alappuzha-based Neythal Nataka San-gham.
KCBC president Cardinal Baselios Cleemis condemned the drama saying it was against the cultural fabric of Kerala and staging it was a blot on the culture of the state.
The statement issued by KCBC deputy secretary Jacob Palakkapilly says the play in-sults the self-respect and con-fidence of nuns, and has been included in the state govern-ment’s international drama fest.
Christians slam ban on healing prayers in northeast India
Christians in a northeast Indian state are opposing a ban on organizing and publicizing healing prayer events, saying it violates the constitutional right to practice their religion.
Authorities in Arunachal Pradesh’s Upper Siang district issued an order on Feb. 28 banning all kinds of “prayer healing, healing crusades, healing through the local priest, pujas [ritual worship in Hinduism], as a remedy to cure various diseases and illness.”
The order issued by a district magistrate said “such practices are misleading the innocent people from taking recourse to scientific medical treatment and cause severe health issues.”
The healing prayer programs also give rise “to social-cultural problems like conversion to other faith and thereby spread discord among people and groups,” the order said.
It further banned publicizing such events invoking the Drug and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisement) Act 1954, which prohibits the advertisement of remedies alleged to possess magic qualities.
The government order stated that the ban is applicable to “all individuals, groups, faiths, and religions.”
“This order is against our fundamental right to practice our religion,” said Tarh Miri Stephen, president of the Arunachal Christian Forum.
Stephan told UCA News on March 7 that his organization will call on the district magistrate who issued the order to know the reasons and appeal to him to withdraw it.
“In case the district magistrate does not comply, we will apprise top officials in the government including the state’s chief minister,” he said.
Stephan did not rule out approaching the courts if the political leadership failed to protect their constitutional right to religious worship.
6.50,000 attend Marian feast in Odisha
More than 50,000 people on March 5 gathered at a Marian pilgrimage center in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, when it celebrated its feast two years after a gap of two years.
“We are here after the Covid pandemic to thank God who loves unconditionally and who is always willing to grant Mother Mary’s intercession for all of us,” said Archbishop John Barwa of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar, the main celebrant of the feast day Mass at the Marian shrine in Partamaha, a small village in Odisha’s Kandhamal district.
The Divine Word prelate remembered Komoladevi, a local Hindu widow whose vision of the Blessed Virgin led to the setting up of the pilgrimage center in 1994 in the village, some 250 km southwest of Bhubaneswar, the state capital. She died of Covid-19 in 2020.
Father Mukund Dev, the parish of Our Lady of Holy Rosary Daringbadi and a member of managing committee of the shrine, said more than 50,000 people attended this year’s feast. The gathering included 55 priests and 25 nuns.
People gathering in such huge number is the sign of growing faith in God and accepting Mother Mary, the priest told Matters India.
Saraj Nayak, the secretary of development committee of the shrine, the people prayed for Mother Mary’s intervention to bring peace and harmony between warring Russia and Ukraine. “We also pray that the Vatican declare 36 Catholic victims of anti-Christian violence 2008 as martyrs of the Church,” he added.
The Archdiocese of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar comprises of nine civil districts of Boudh, Cuttack, Kandhamal, Kendrapara, Khurda, Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur, Nayagarh and Puri. It has 39 parishes serving around 70,000 Catholics. Kandhamal district alone has about 50,000 Catholics in 26 parishes including recently erected Sonpur and Barokhoma entrusted to the Capuchin priests.
The shrine was built after Komoladevi went to Partamaha Mountain to collect fire wood on March 5, 1994. She saw a bearded man in white dress and long hair coming closer to her. He disappeared after sometimes.
A beautiful woman from a distance called her and told her to request the local priest to build a church where people could pray the Rosary for the sinners to repent. The neighbors laughed at her when she first shared the experience .