The Xavier School of Business Management, popularly known as XLRI Jamshedpur, a premier Jesuit intuition has a new Director Rev. Fr P. Maria Joseph Christie, S.J. took over on 7th June, 2019 from Rev. Fr Abraham Enthesmkuzhy who handed over the reins of administration to Rev. Fr Christie, S.J. Fr Abraham was Director of XLRI for 11 years. Earlier too, he was Director for six years thus becoming one of the longest serving Director.
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Patna Jesuit college joins Global Climate Strike
Students of St Xavier’s College of Management and Technology, Patna have expressed solidarity with the Global Climate Strike.
They were among millions of students of colleges and schools who on September 27 took to streets at more than 4,500 demonstrations in at least 130 countries to demand politicians to urgently tackle the climate crisis.
The youth climate campaign, started by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg outside the Swedish parliament a year ago, has grown from a solo protest to a campaign of millions of young people demanding radical action. Adults, businesses and trade unions have also joined the youth climate campaign. Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, said its 200 million members in countries from South Africa to Germany, Mozambique to Turkey stood shoulder to shoulder with the students.
Church leaders warn Filipinos of martial law ‘horrors’
Church leaders have called on Filipinos never to forget the “horrors” of martial law, which was imposed across the country almost half a century ago. The declaration of martial law by late president Ferdinand Marcos resulted in thousands of human rights abuses.
Amnesty International recorded over 100,000 victims, with at least 70,000 people arrested, 34,000 tortured and 3,240 others killed.
Bishop Arturo Bastes of Sorsogon said Filipinos have to be reminded of the atrocities of martial law, adding that there is a “sinister plot… to erase the memory of the darkest period” in Philippine history.
He said “articles should be written… to remind Filipinos, especially the young, of the horrors of martial law imposed by Marcos.”
Retired Bishop Teodoro Bacani of Novaliches said Filipinos should remember how “oppressive and harmful” martial law was to the people. “It bred a culture of subservience and corruption from which we have not recovered,” he said.
India cracks down on foreign donations
Christian leaders in India are complaining that the nation’s pro-Hindu government is placing unfair restrictions on voluntary organizations receiving foreign funding.
The federal home ministry on Sept. 16 announced changes to the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA).
The new rules require all chief functionaries of voluntary groups to sign affidavits that they have not been prosecuted or convicted for forced religious conversion or creating communal tensions. There are also declaration requirements in relation to not engaging in what the government defines as “sedition” as well as details about the use of foreign funds.
Until now, only the heads of organizations needed to give such an affidavit. Now all office bearers must sign the affidavit and undertake to report any violation of requirements.
The amended rules apply to new registrations and re-registration of organizations after five-year terms expire.
A.C. Michael, a senior office holder of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) that campaigns for Christian rights, said the onerous provisions are unreasonable and appear to be an attempt to discourage Christian leaders from managing voluntary organizations. “Thousands of these organizations are headed by religious leaders who profess and preach their faith,” he said. “It could be another step towards throttling religious freedom.”
Indian prelate urges dialogue with Hindus over ‘forced conversion’
For almost a decade under St John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, then-Monsignor Felix Machado was a primary architect of the Vatican’s inter-religious outreach, including putting together a star-studded 2002 summit of religious leaders in Assisi as a follow-up to John Paul’s historic, and deeply controversial, first such gathering in 1986. Machado, born in Vasai, India, outside what was then Bombay, served as under-secretary of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue from 1999 to 2008. There he worked shoulder to shoulder with Michael Fitzgerald, the British prelate whose own passion for inter-faith dialogue will be rewarded Oct. 5 when Pope Francis inducts him into the College of Cardinals.
German ‘synodal way’ is rapid response to abuse scandal, conference says
The bishops of Germany, reacting to an independent study of the extent of clerical sexual abuse in their country and its possible causes, chose to initiate a “synodal” process that was not a Synod or a plenary council. Building on a series of “listening sessions” the bishops held from 2011 to 2015, “we did not choose a Synod because it would take too long,” and the sex abuse study called for a rapid response. So “we have chosen something sui generis: The synodal way,” said Matthias Kopp, spokesman for the conference.
The entire bishops’ conference is to discuss the final plans for the process when the bishops meet on Sept. 23-26 in Fulda.
Amazon abp backs ordination of married priests
Specifically, the bishop backed the ordination of married men as priests in the Amazon, supporting the idea of calling viriprobati, or tested married men, into the priesthood to serve isolated rural communities. Archbishop Rafael Cob of the Diocese of Puyo believes that an Oct 6-27 Synod of Bishops on the Pan-Amazon region convened by Francis is “historical.”
Synods are not for deal-making, but for listening to Spirit, pope says
Before a Synod, bishops must learn what their people want and think and need, not so they can change church teaching, but so they can preach the Gospel more effectively, Pope Francis told the bishops of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.
Forty-seven bishops from Ukrainian dioceses in Ukraine and 10 other nations, including the United States, Canada and Australia, met the Pope on Sept. 2 during their Synod in Rome.
Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych, head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, told Francis that “every bishop and representative of our local communities has made his journey to Rome carrying with him the sufferings and hopes of the people of God entrusted to our pastoral care.”
The bishops, he said, want to be synodal – walking together with their people – “not only during our sessions but also when we return to our communities. Because, in fact, one cannot walk while seated!”
Speaking to the bishops, Francis focused on Shevchuk’s remarks and on how the Eastern Catholic Churches, like the Orthodox Churches, have a longer and uninterrupted history of decisions flowing from bishops’ Synods. “There is a danger,” the Pope said, which is “thinking today that making a synodal journey or having an attitude of ‘synodality’ means investigating opinions – what does this one and that one think – and then having a meeting to make an agreement. No! The Synod is not a parliament!”
While Synod members must discuss matters and offer their opinions, he said, the purpose is not “to come to an agreement like in politics: ‘I’ll give you this, you give me that.’”
Bishops must know what their lay faithful, priests and religious think, the Pope said, but it’s not a survey or a vote on what should change.
Evangelical missions a major threat to Amazon culture, Catholic leaders say
Historically a Catholic country, Brazil has been facing a religious transition since the 1990s, when what had been a steady growth of Evangelical Protestantism began to accelerate.
According to some experts, Brazilian Evangelicals could become a majority in the country as soon as 2032. This phenomenon is particularly strong in the Amazon, where some states have the biggest percentage of Evangelicals in the country.
Four of the six Brazilian States with the biggest proportion of Evangelicals are located in the Amazon, in the northern part of the country. In Rondônia, which is at the top of the list, there were 734,000 Catholics in 2010 – when the last data were released by the government – and 528,000 Evangelicals. Ten years before, in 2000, the number of Catholics was 793,000 and there were only 375,000 Evangelicals.
Jesuit devil debacle draws fire from exorcist across ecumenical lines
Father Erich Junger, an Anglican exorcist, has joined the chorus of those voicing concern over recent comments by Jesuit Father General Arturo Sosa saying the devil is not a real person, but a symbol.
Speaking to Crux, Junger, a member of the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA), said that while he is not a spokesman for his church, as a priest and exorcist he was “greatly shocked and disturbed” to see a person of such prominence in the Jesuit order refer to the devil as “a symbolic reality, not as a personal reality.”
Though not considered part of the Anglican Communion by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the ACNA is in communion with some Anglican provinces in the Global South. It follows the Anglo-Catholic tradition on exorcism, which adheres to more of the practices and rites of the Catholic Church, tending to use the Roman Catholic rite.
Sosa’s comments, Junger said, “are dangerous and inconsistent with the teachings maintained by the Roman Catholic Church as is codified by their own catechism.”
Though the Jesuits themselves did a fair amount of “damage control” after Sosa’s remarks, Junger said the comments were “very startling and unexpected” for many people.