Cardinal Oswald Gracias has cautioned the priests of his Bombay archdiocese to not let their guard down as they have resumed pastoral activities as the administration has relaxed lock-down norms.
The cardinal’s caution came in the wake of some priests succumbing to Covid-19. “It is with extremely deep sadness that we received the news of the passing into eternity of our two dear brother priests: Fathers Dominic Alves and Johnny Nicholas. Earlier we were shocked to learn of the passing away of Father Simplicius Khess, a Dominican helping out at Our Lady of Mercy Church, Pokhran. We were not prepared for these departures. We pray for them,” Cardinal Gracias said August 15 while addressing the priests of Bombay archdiocese.
“This is a good occasion for us to remind ourselves not to let our guard down. Please observe strictly the norms for wearing masks, social distancing and Covid-19 washing of hands,” says the 75-year-old prelate, who heads the Catholic Church India as the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India.

He has warned especially priests with hypertension and diabetes. “Those with comorbidities have to be particularly careful; especially if you have diabetes, hypertension or some lung infection,” he added.

Tension escalated in parts of India’s Kerala State as police used force to take over some churches of a Christian faction following a court order, aiming to give them to a rival camp.
In pre-dawn operations, police took over three churches of the Jacobite faction on be-half of the Malankara Orthodox faction. Police used force to remove hundreds of protesters including Jacobite priests and bishops.
“Women, children and bishops were subjected to cruel police brutality,” said a statement by Jacobite bishops after they met in an emergency Synod on Aug. 20.
They also registered their protest against the “inhuman and unjust” attitude of the Supreme Court that resulted in “the rushed move to take over the churches of the Jacobite Church.”
The Synod decided to organize protests at their churches while following Covid-19 protocols. The Synod also declared the severance of “all sacra-mental and spiritual relation-ship” with the Orthodox fact-ion, said Joseph Mar Gregorios, the metropolitan trustee and senior bishop of the Jacobite Church. More than 1,100 churches in the Jacobite Church’s possession are under the threat of forceful acquisition after the court order, said Biby Kadavumbhagam, who edits an official publication of the Jacobite faction.

Indian bishops and the country’s oldest lay Catholic organization have urged church members to stand in solidarity with the poor, who have been marginalized even more during the Covid-19 pandemic.
As the nation is still following federal government guidelines to restrict social gatherings, the All India Catholic Union (AICU) held its annual general meeting through a webinar.

The meeting was inaugurated by Archbishop Felix Machado of Vasai, secretary general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), in Mumbai on Aug. 16.

He said that Pope St John Paul II and Pope Francis had stressed that foreign debt, with manipulated taxes and interests of the creditors, should be cancelled.

“All Indian citizens are equal to us in dignity before God; and as Catholics, all people in the world are equal to us in dignity,” Archbishop Machado said.

A court in southern India has stopped a multinational firm from restarting its copper-processing plant, which was shut down two years ago following a protest that claimed 13 lives including those of four Catholics.

Madras High Court in Tamil Nadu State on Aug. 18 dismissed a petition by London-based Vedanta Limited seeking permission to reopen its multi-million-dollar plant in Tuticorin district.
“The court has done the right thing. It reflects the will of the people. The plant was instrumental in causing immense environmental pollution,” Bishop Stephan Antony Pillai of Tuticorin told UCA News on Aug. 19.

The plant was shut down in May 2018 following a three-month public protest.

At least 13 people were killed and more than 100 injured when police opened fire on unarmed protesters on May 22 and 23. A Catholic priest was also among the injured.

“Our groundwater, soil and the ecology got polluted from the waste emitted from the plant as the company officials were callous in protecting the environment,” Bishop Pillai said.

The effect of the pollution “was so much that we did not get proper rain and a large number of our people suffered cancer, breathlessness, skin diseases, tuberculosis, among other illnesses,” he said.

“We experience better air and water quality, and we are beginning to get rain now.”

Catholic bishops in Kerala have warned about the increasing influence of international terrorist outfits such as Islamic State in the southern Indian state. The bishops’ call follows a United Nations report which said there are Islamic State-related terrorists in the southern states of Kerala and Karnataka.
Groups like al-Qaida on the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and Islamic State have a “significant” number of members in the two states, said the report of the UN’s analytical support and sanctions monitoring team released on July 25.
The bishops want to create “greater awareness” among people about the terror outfits and their motives to keep their countrymen, “especially the youth, away from the destructive elements.”
Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council made the call at the end of its five-day mon-soon gathering on Aug. 8. The online meeting was attended by 47 bishops from all 29 dioceses in the state. The Covid-19 pandemic restrained physical meeting.
The UN report should become “an eye-opener to officials in Kerala State,” it said. It wanted them “to take appropriate steps to check the growth of such elements from getting rooted.”
According to the UN report, a member state said the Indian unit of Islamic State has 180-200 members and “significant numbers” are from Kerala and Karnataka states.

India’s Protestant Church has laicized one of its bishops after he revolted and declared his diocese an autonomous church. The Church of North India (CNI) on Aug. 11 remo-ved Bishop Basil B. Baskey of Chotanagpur Diocese in Jhar-khand State in eastern India from his office. It also with-drew his ordination as a priest and a bishop.
The executive committee of its Synod, the top decision-making body, “unanimously resolved” to terminate the services of the bishop from all offices in the church, said an official statement.
The decision came after an internal probe found the bishop guilty of acts of revolt and indiscipline, the communique said.
“The instrument of election and appointment as bishop in the CNI issued to him by the moderator stands withdrawn and his ordination as priest and consecration as bishop are withdrawn. Hence, from today (Aug. 11), he will be known as Mr Basil B. Baskey,” it said. The official letter signed by CNI moderator Bishop P.C. Singh also appointed pastor Jolja Kujur, the diocesan secretary, as his representative to manage the affairs of the diocese, including its proper-ties and funds.

An NGO led by the Society of the Divine Word has joined civil society groups to help those affected by the lockdown in a district of the north-eastern Indian State of Tripura.
As coronavirus spread in Tripura, Oisho Bani Society (OBS) joining organizations such as Yuva Vikash Kendra to reach out to various parts of Dhalai district, its director Divine Word Father Jeevan Kennady told Matters India.
As the opening of relief work phase-II on August 13, Father Kennady handed over 30 dry ration kits worth of 800 rupees each in Laxmilonga and Lembucherra area and also in the working office of OBS near Assam Rifles Circuit House.
YVK, the partner organization of OBS and Prasanta Chowdhury, a volunteer of OBS, distributed dry ration kits to 150 families in Bardaman Thakurpara ADC village and 30 families in Teliamura respectively.
The dry ration includes rice, dal, oil, wheat, salt, turmeric, soybean, onion, potatoes, sanitizer and masks.
OBS has a plan to cover over 600 families from different places in Tripura in two weeks, said Father Kennady.

Demands for official recognition of the Sarna tribal religion have intensified in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand after Hindu groups took soil from sacred Sarna sthals to use in the construction of a temple in Ayodhya.
Some 32 tribal organizations plan to boycott next year’s national census if their demand for recognition of the Sarna religion in the census is not met.
“There is no doubt that we are also included among those 32 organizations because we are tribals first, then Christian. Tribal Christians have always been in favour of the Sarna code and have joined the demand for recognition,” Ratan Tirkey, a member of the Tribes Advisory Committee of Jharkhand, told UCA News.
“Demand for recognition of the Sarna code intensified after the soil-taking incident because that was a conspiracy by Hindu fanatics to divide tribal people in the name of religion.
“Christians are outnumbered by people who practice the Sarna religion in the state, so Hindu fanatics are attempting to alienate Christian tribals by claiming that Sarna tribals belong to Hindu society.
“Sarna tribals are nature worshipers who revere forests, mountains and rivers. They do not belong to any religious sect and their demand for a separate category in the census dates back to the 1990s.”

When Jesuit Father George Gispert Sauch died on July 29 in Bombay, India’s secular media completely ignored the fact that this 90-year old from Spain spent more than 70 years working for interreligious dialogue in the country.
He himself articulated it so well: “The relations between the followers of the many world religions and even of smaller religious traditions and Christian believers have now entered a stage beyond ‘confrontation,’ ‘encounter’ and comparative ‘dialogue’ to a search for sharing spirituality.”

A Marian hymn sung by a Catholic arch-bishop in Kerala, southern India, has become a hit on social media platforms.
“This is the first time in the history of the Indian Church that an archbishop has sung in a studio for a Christian album,” says Father John Puthuva, who wrote the lyric for ”Japamaala Kayyil” (Rosary in Hand), a Malayalam hymn sung by Archbishop Antony Kariyil, episcopal vicar of the Archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly.