Pope Francis has invited the youth of the Syro-Malabar Church to follow Jesus by saying “yes” to a life of service and responsibility, and “no” to one of superficiality and dissipation.
The Pope said on June 18 during a meeting with the pilgrims of the “Syro-Malabar Youth Leaders Conference.
The Syro-Malabar Catholic Church is one of the two Eastern Catholic autonomous (sui iuris) Churches in India, in full communion with the Pope, the other one being the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. The Syro-Malabar is the third largest sui juris Church of the Catholic Church, and the second largest Eastern Catholic Church after the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, with some 4.25 million faithful worldwide.
Over half of them live in the Indian state of Kerala, where the Church dates back to the first century following the preaching of Saint Thomas the Apostle and where the Church is still based.

June appears to be the cruelest month for India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), although the former seems unfazed if his silence is any indicator.
The Islamic world is furious with a BJP spokesperson’s re-marks on the Prophet Muhammad while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also called out India for rising attacks on religious minorities.
What the world and the nation aren’t aware of is the challenge facing the Indian prime minister on his home turf.
The Patidars or Patels, who form the backbone of the BJP’s political support base in Modi’s home state of Gujarat in we-stern India, are furious with him.
The members of this financially and politically influential agrarian caste who claim to have descended from Lord Ram are also staunch followers of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, a former federal home minister credited with securing India’s unity in the aftermath of independence preceded by a bloody partition.
The sardar or chieftain of the Patel peasants thus came to be known as India’s “Iron Man” and his name was given to a cricket stadium originally built on the outskirts of Gujarat’s principal city of Ahmadabad in 1982.

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on June 22 met Pope Francis in the Vatican.
“It has been an absolute pleasure meeting His Holiness Pope Francis in Vatican City. Thanked him for the warm audience and wished him good health and long life,” Patnaik said on his social media post.

The XIth General Chapter of the Society of St Paul held at Ariccia, Italy, has elected Fr Domenico Soliman (56 years) as the next Superior General of the Congregation, and the 8th successor to Blessed James Alberione, its Founder and first Superior General. Fr Soliman was elected to the highest office of the Congregation on Wednesday, June 15, 2022.

Caritas India, the social development arm of the Catholic bishops in India, has been awarded for its excellent work in humanitarian aid and disaster risk reduction, community health, climate-adaptive agriculture and food sovereignty.

An Italian missionary who dedicated herself to working with street children in Haiti for more than 20 years, was murdered.
Sister Luisa Dell’Orto, a Little Sister of the Gospel of Saint Charles de Foucauld, was shot during a robbery attempt on June 25.

Catholics in India have questioned the silence of the global community over the brutal mass killing of Christians in southwest Nigeria recently and want it to take a strong stand against such atrocities. Scores of Catholics belonging to the Catholic Congress based in Kerala state in southern India staged a rally in Kottayam district, a Christian stronghold, and condemned the massacre.On June 5, Pentecost Sunday, gunmen believed to be Islamic extremists associated with Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) entered St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo state. They fired weapons, detonated explosives and killed at least 40 people, government agencies said. “We appeal to the global community to stand up against the mass murders in Nigeria,” said Catholic Congress president P.P. Joseph of Changanaserry Archdio-cese. “Unless the global conscious rises up against such murders, humanity will not survive in this world.”
Archbishop Joseph Perumthottam of Changanassery Archdiocese in Kerala wrote an editorial for Deepika (Light), a church-run daily, in Malayalam, the official language of the southern state.
“When it comes to the killing and persecution of Christians, certain media houses maintain silence. What sort of media ethics is this?” he wrote in a June 13 article.
The prelate claimed that in 2021 alone at least 6,000 Christians were slaughtered in Nigeria by Islamic terrorist groups such as Boko Haram among others. Since 2009, at least 40,000 Christians were killed by Boko Haram in Nigeria, he added.
The prelate also expressed concern over the spread of Islamic terror in other African countries and other parts of the world, noting that Christians are “the worst victims of persecution” and questioned why global powers could not protect human beings from the onslaught of Islamic terrorists.