The Holy See announced on April 27 that Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Archbishop George Stack of Cardiff, Wales, appointing Bishop Mark O’Toole of the Diocese of Plymouth, England, to succeed him. At the same time, O’Toole has also been named the Bp of Menevia, the neighbouring Welsh diocese, which has had no bishop since 2019. The pope united the sees in persona episcopi, unifying them in the person of the bishop who oversees them both, even while they remain juridically separate. While the move is historically unusual, it has become increasingly common under Pope Francis, and could signal the eventual merger of dioceses in countries across the West, including the United States, in the face of declining numbers of clergy and Mass-going Catholics.
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Being in Oberammergau Passion Play is stressful, but pulls people together
Next time, Jesus would like to be a villain. That is a role one of the two actors portraying Christ in the Oberammergau Passion Play in Germany would be interested in playing.
Frederik Mayet will play Jesus for a second time when the world-famous Passion Play begins its 2022 season May 14. The play will run five days every week until Oct. 2, during which Mayet will alternate in the role of Jesus with 25-year-old Rochus Rückel.
Mayet, who was born in Oberammergau, will be taking part for the third time. In 2010, he played Jesus for the first time; in 2000, he portrayed St. John.
Interviewed in German by video from Oberammergau, the father of two said the role of Jesus is demanding.
“Physically, the scenes with the scourging and the Way of the Cross, and hanging on the cross for 20 minutes, are quite exhausting,” he said. It is necessary to find distance from the role offstage, he noted. “It’s import-ant at the end of the evening to leave that role behind, and chat with friends about football or whatever over a beer. In the context of acting in the play, one shouldn’t over identify with Jesus, but see it as a role which one tries to interpret as well as possible.”
Mayet said a person grows into that role. “You try to just play your part well and do it justice, because you know there are people coming from all over the world to see the play. So that gives you a ‘positive stress,’ which carries you. I concentrate on playing my role well and on speaking clearly.”
To get the role of Jesus, “you must have some acting talent, and a good voice. There’s also the physical appearance — to play Jesus, you must have a certain look, and be of the right age, between your mid-20s and early 40s. I’m now 41,” Mayet said.
Since almost all cast members are amateur actors, it might have helped that Mayet has a professional theatre background — he is an art director and media officer at the Münchner Volkstheater in Munich. “But we also per-form stage plays in years in Oberammergau when there are no Passion Plays, so people get to know one another, and the director gets a sense of who is capable of what.”
Every role is cast with two actors, who perform on alternate days. Initially, there may be some disappointments with the casting decisions, Mayet said.
Yet soon there is unity in purpose. “When it comes to the time when we prepare for the play and perform it, everybody sticks together. It’s the Passion year, and everybody puts their differences to one side in order to concentrate on the common goal: to stage a great Passion Play,” Mayet said.
Many friendships are built in that process, also across generations, he noted.
“The youngest of our actors is 8 years old, and the oldest is 80. People across the generations are sitting together, get to know one another, and share in a mutual experi-ence. That is precious.”
Indian Christians arrested for attending Maundy Thursday service
Police in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state charged 55 Christians who took part in a Maundy Thursday service with violating a law that criminalizes religious conversion following complaints by right-wing Hindu groups.
Among them, 26 people were arrested and later released on bail, but police say they are searching for others included in the first information report (FIR).
Christian leaders denied the allegations and said the Maundy Thursday service on April 14 was “portrayed as a religious conversion activity and those who attended it were harassed for no fault of their own.”
Some 70 believers of the Evangelical Church of India gathered at their church in Fatehpur in Harihar Ganj district for the service to commemorate the Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples before he was crucified.
One Christian said right-wing Hindu activists who gathered outside the church locked its two main gates. “They then began to shout slogans like ‘Stop conversion’ among other things,” he said.
When police arrived at the scene after being alerted about the incident, they questioned the Christians about their details and kept them inside the church for close to three hours.
“We were told that we were kept in the police station for our own safety, but when we were taken for a medical examination we realized that we were being charged”
Hindu leaders also entered the church and demanded the personal details of the Christians.
Officers then took the Christians, including women and children, to the police station on the assumption that they were being taken to their homes.
Later that night, the women and children were allowed to go home while 26 males were kept in custody.
“We were told that we were kept in the police station for our own safety, but when we were taken for a medical examination we realized that we were being charged,” said one of the Christians.
Church opens Indian state’s first palliative care centre
The Catholic Church has set up the first-ever palliative care centre in Nagaland, a Christian-majority state in northeast India.
The St. Joseph Pain and Palliative Care Centre at Chumukedima, near the state’s commercial hub of Dimapur, was inaugurated by Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, a Baptist Christian, on April 24.
The centre is an initiative of the Diocese of Kohima and will be run by the Medical Sisters of St Joseph, Nirmala Province from Kerala, known for their dedicated service to the sick, the poor and the least of the brethren irrespective of caste and creed.
“This first fully fledged palliative care centre in Nagaland intends to provide service free of cost. The state government will extend all possible help to carry out this gratuitous service to the people,” announced Rio.
Nagaland, a predominantly Baptist Christian stronghold, along with the southern state of Tamil Nadu has the highest percentage of elderly people living alone without a spouse, children or any other support, according to the first Longitudinal Ageing Study in India released in 2021.
Indian faith leaders pledge unity during Ramadan
Leaders of different faiths at the first-ever iftar organized by the Archdiocese of Delhi pledged to remain united amid sectarian violence and growing unrest in India.
The iftar or evening meal with which Muslims end their daily Ramadan fast at sunset was a symbolic gesture to show solidarity with members of the national capital’s Islamic community who are fasting during the holy month.
“Through this program we wanted to spread love and peace among all people,” Archbishop Anil Joseph Thomas Couto of Delhi said at the interreligious event held by the archdiocese’s Commission for Ecumenism and Interfaith Dialogue on April 22.
The prelate said there was nothing to gain from what was happening in the country, where one community was pitted against the other in the name of religion, caste and creed.
“Let not the communal forces divide us,” said Archbishop Couto while urging all faith communities to come together and address the challenges before the country.
Bishop who strengthened tribal Church in south Rajasthan dies
Emeritus Bishop Joseph Pathalil, the first prelate of Udaipur diocese in Rajasthan, died April 14 after a long illness. He was 85. The death occurred at 12 noon at Paras KJ Hospital in Udaipur.
A message from Bishop Devprasad Ganawa of Udaipur said his predecessor had developed some breathing difficulties in the morning and was rushed to the hospital. “Due to a cardiac arrest, he breathed his last,” Bishop Ganawa added.
Angel Voice’s priest founder dies
Father Kuriakose Kachiramattom, the founder director of the nationally famous Christian music troupe – Angel Voice Gospel Music Group — died April 22. He was 79.
The death occurred in the after-noon at Lissie Hospital in Ernakulam, Kochi. Father Kachiramattom be-longed to Kothamangalam Syro-Malabar Eparchy.
Rani Maria film to hit silver screen soon
A Bollywood feature film on Blessed Rani Maria, a martyred social reformer, will be released in August, says director Shaison P Ouseph.
“This is the culmination of a 5-year dream and hard work, which is at the final stage of completion,” Ouseph told Matters India April 27.
Cardinal George Alencherry, head of the Syro-Malabar Church, released the film’s title – “The face of the faceless” – two days earlier.
Hyderabad: Foundation laid for church in Secretariat complex
Medak Diocese Bishop Reverend AC Soloman said Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao was safeguarding the secular fabric in Telangana by according equal importance to all communities.
The Medak Diocese Bishop along with MLC Rajeshwar Rao laid the foundation stone for a new church coming up at the new State Secretariat complex on April 28. Bishop Solomon participated in the ground-breaking ceremony of the new church and performed special prayers.
First women’s college on west coast turns coed
Come September, the first women’s college on India’s western coast will admit young men as students. The Apostolic Carmel congregation started St Agnes College in Mangaluru more than a century ago to exclusively educate women.
After its centenary celebrations in 2021, the college decided to start co-education, says principal Apostolic Carmel Sister M Venissa. “The college wished to extend its legacy of a century to male students at the undergraduate level. Finally, we are able to make it and admissions will commence from next academic year,” she told reporters. The principal also said they would admit about 30 percent male students in the first year. The number will be increased according to the demand.