A national body of Catholic and Protestant women leaders has urged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to heed the protesting farmers’ demand and repeal the three recently enacted farm laws.
“Our farmers have never failed our nation through the last 71 years. Please do not fail them now,” pleads a letter from the Indian Christian Women Movement addressed to the prime minister as the farmers’ pro-tests on the Delhi borders entered 70th day on Feb. 3.
At the same time, the women says they watch with horror how the protest sites outside Delhi’s borders are being fortified with barbed wires, cement barriers and spikes on the roads. They also point out that wooden batons in the hands of the police have been replaced with steel batons.
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Church must support resistance movements: Kerala priest
There is a need for Christians to close ranks with the protesting farmers who are fighting for justice, says Father Y.T. Vinayaraj, theologian, writer and chief editor of the Malankara Sabha Tharaka, the organ of the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church head- quartered in Thiruvalla.
“The Christian faith is essentially anti-imperialist and the Church is duty-bound to join forces with people’s resistance movements,” says Dr Vinayaraj, who took to Face-book the other day to make a fervent appeal for support to the farmers.
According to him, the Centre is colluding with neo-liberal capitalist forces to divest the farmers and other ordinary people of their rightful share of resources. “This government relies on religious nationalism to gain political legitimacy and deals with an iron hand democratic protests seeking justice. We have had so many instances of this: the attack on Jawaharlal Nehru University, the anti-CAA [Citizenship (Amendment) Act] protests, the justice for Rohit Vemula movement and now the farmers’ agitation. It is time subaltern and democratic forces came together to offer resista-nce,” Dr Vinayaraj, who also teaches at the Mar Thoma seminary told.
He feels let down by the leaders of a section of the Catholic Church who he thinks “are only trying to push their vested interests by joining hands with the undemocratic forces.”
“What are they trying to strike a deal for? Mere representation in minority forums or for some personal gains? When asked if they discussed the farmers’ protest during their meeting with the Prime Minister, one bishop said they had not discussed any political issue. But isn’t solidarity with the suffering and the deprived classes, the Dalits, at the heart of Christianity? It is a fake religiosity without that,” argues Dr Vinayaraj, who wants the Church to be a reformist force.
Images of the exodus of migrants, the protesting farmers, imprisonment of human rights activists, persecution of women, Dalits and sexual minorities and a government that was increasingly becoming authoritarian were all invoked by the editorial of the Mar Thoma Church organ in its December 2020 issue, ask-ing what these signs portended for the Church.
Dalit Christians stage protest march in southern India
Dalit Christians in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu held a protest march in Kumbakonam Diocese against the discrimination faced by Dalits.
The protesters from eight Dalit Christian groups marched on Feb. 6 to submit a memorandum to the bishop and other diocesan officials stating their demand for a Dalit bishop in the diocese.
India’s wealth gap widened during pandemic: Oxfam report
The wealthy in India grew richer during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, while millions went to bed without food, says the latest Oxfam International report.
The annual report, published just ahead of last week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, noted that Indian billionaires increased their wealth by 35 percent in 2020 when the world struggled against the pandemic.
During 2020 wealth increased globally to make the world’s billionaire elite richer, said Oxfam, a confederation of 20 independent charitable organizations based in Oxford, England.
Court orders probe into alleged misuse of church assets
The Madras High Court has directed the Registrar of Companies to inquire into allegations of misuse of the assets of the Church of South India (CSI) Trust Association that has properties worth several trillions of rupees across southern India.
In his order, Justice R Mahadevan directed the registrar to conduct the inquiry strictly in accordance with law by giving the church association an opportunity to be heard between February 17 and 22. The Court also asked the registrar to file a detailed report with the federal Ministry of Corporate Affairs for deciding further course of action in two weeks.
No nationwide anti-conversion law planned: Government
A nationwide law to ban religious con-versions or interfaith marriages is not being planned since it falls under the dominion of states, the central government said in parliament on February 2.
The assurance came amid a renewed drive for such legislation in several states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), that heads the federal coalition government.
Pope names first woman under-secretary with rights to vote
Pope Francis February 6 appointed a Spanish priest and a French religious sister as under-secretaries of the Synod of Bishops.
It is the first time a woman has held a position of this level within the general secretariat of the Synod of Bishops.
Father Luis Marín de San Martín and Sister Nathalie Becquart will replace Bishop Fabio Fabene, who was named secretary of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints in January.
Working with and under secretary general Cardinal Mario Grech, Marín and Becquart will prepare the Vatican’s forthcoming synod on synodality, scheduled for October 2022.
In an interview with Vatican News, Cardinal Grech said in this position, Becquart will vote in future synods alongside other voting members, who are bishops, priests, and some religious men.
During the 2018 youth synod, some people asked why religious and consecrated women could not vote on the synod’s final document.
According to the canonical norms governing synods of bishops, only clerics – that is deacons, priests, or bishops – can be voting members.
Grech noted February 6 that “during the last Synods, numerous synodal fathers emphasized the need that the entire Church reflect on the place and role of women within the Church.”
“Even Pope Francis highlighted several times the importance that women be more involved in the processes of discernment and decision making in the Church,” he said.
“Already in the last synods, the number of women participating as experts or auditors increased. With the appointment of Sister Nathalie Becquart, and the possibility that she will participate with the right to vote, a door has been open,” Grech stated. “We will then see what other steps could be taken in the future.”
Sister Becquart, 51, has been a member of the Congregation of Xavieres since 1995.
She has been one of five consultors, four of whom are women, to the general secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, since 2019.
Pope announces ‘world day of grandparents’
Pope Francis has announced a new “world day of grandparents and the elderly” to recognised often-forgotten older generations.
Speaking after the Angelus yesterday, he praised the “precious voice” and “wisdom” of the elderly, and said it was important that children are allowed to meet and learn from their grandparents.
He timed his announcement two days before tomorrow’s feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, when Simeon and Anna, both elderly, recognised Jesus as the Messiah.
“The Holy Spirit still arouses thoughts and words of wisdom in the elderly today: their voice is precious because it sings the praises of God and guards the roots of peoples,” Pope Francis said. “They remind us that old age is a gift and that grandparents are the link between generations, to transmit to young people an experience of life and faith.
“Grandparents are often forgotten and we forget this wealth of preserving the roots and transmitting.”
Pope Francis said: “It is important that grandparents meet their grandchildren and that grandchildren meet with grand-parents, because – as the prophet Joel says – grandparents will dream in front of grandchildren, they will have illusions [great desires], and young people, taking strength from their grand-parents, will go on, prophesy.”
Pope attends funeral of his personal physician
Seated before a casket covered with flowers, Pope Francis attended the funeral of his personal physician, Dr Fabrizi Soccorsi, on Jan. 26.
The funeral Mass was celebrated by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, at the Church of Santa Maria Regina della Famiglia, which is in the Governor’s Palace inside Vatican City. Soccorsi, 78, had been admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital December 26 because of cancer, according to the Italian Catholic agency SIR.
However, he died Jan. 9 of “pulmonary complications” caused by COVID-19, the agency said, without providing further details.
Soccorsi had been the pope’s personal physician since 2015. He had also served as an adviser for the Vatican’s health services department and a consultant-physician to the Vatican Congregation for Saints’ Causes.
He had been head physician of the hepatology ward in Rome’s San Camillo-Forlanini hospital and director of its department of liver diseases, the digestive system and nutrition; he also taught immunology at the municipal and regional medical schools.
Nun says her Vatican appointment means ‘clericalist mindset is changing’
A French nun who could potentially be the first woman to cast a vote in the Synod of Bishops said that her appointment is evidence the “clericalist mindset is changing” as more and more women assume high-level decision-making responsibilities in the Catholic hierarchy.
Sister Nathalie Becquart told journalists that Pope Francis has been underlining the importance of including women in the decision-making processes, helping move the Church from a clericalist attitude towards a more synodal one.
“How can we somehow end with a clerical Church, where there have been abuses, of power and other kind of abuses,” she asked, during a conference transmitted live from Rome via Zoom. “By being like Christ, by being at the service of others and accompanying others.” The Synod of Bishops is a product of the Second Vatican Council, and since the late 1960s it has been meeting in Rome semi-regularly to discuss a wide array of topics. It serves as an advisory body to the pope, with no actual decision-making power.
No woman has ever voted in one of these meetings, though they have regularly taken part as observers, advisers, auditors and experts. Becquart, appointed by Pope Francis as undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops, could become the first woman to cast a vote. Though there’s no written rule that says the undersecretary does vote, it has been the tradition thus far. Furthermore, Maltese Cardinal Mario Grech, told the Vatican’s in-house media that “a door has been opened” for her to vote in the upcoming synod, to be held in 2022, on the issue of synodality.
“We will then see what other steps could be taken in the future,” he said regarding the role of women in decision-making positions within the Church. But Becquart does not see her appointment as being about power, but rather, service: “Now that I have been appointed, the question is, how can I be of service? How can I use this authority for the service of the Church?”