“Walk the talk is to live the gospel values in day today life. The type of leadership in Pope Francis is participatory leadership. Then only any changes shall happen in clericalism,” said Bishop Sarat Chandra Nayak of Berhampur on November 7 in his keynote address at the golden jubilee of Morning Star Regional Seminary, Kolkata.

Bishop Nayak asserted that the root of priestly formation lies in virtues of love, joy and humility.

“Merciful approach of God to all is to define the personality of true pastors. Avoiding luxury and embracing simplicity is the ideal of Francis in life,” said Bishop Nayak, an alumnus of the seminary.

The golden jubilee celebrations had a theme “to love all including those who do not love us.”

Sufficient openness for the laity in the Church in areas such as the diocesan councils for marriage, finance and pastoral is urgent, said the prelate.

He said that the next millennium will be of the laity.

Quoting Pope Francis, Bishop Nayak spoke on marching with joy and hope in current challenging situations of the Church.

In another talk, Father Soosai Mannickam, former staff, spoke about Pope Francis’ pastoral ministry expectations from the priests.

The principle character of a pastor is to know his people, (smell the sheep), the forgiving love of God (who am I to judge), the priest said.

Father Mannickam also noted that Pope Francis’ leadership is to inspire all.

“The new way of evangelizing God’s word is living a life in the values of the Kingdom a life of mercy and kindness in holiness.”

The Missionaries of Charity (MC) congregation has agreed to resume its service of giving children for adoption. The congregation founded by St Teresa of Kolkata, commonly known as Mother Teresa, dis-continued giving babies from their orphanages for adoption in Oct. 2015 after disagreeing with a new federal law that allowed single and divorced woman to adopt children.

The congregation has revised its stance and will join the centralized adoption service system set up by the government, said Maneka Gandhi, who heads the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

A delegation of three MC nuns including Sister Mary Prema Pierick met the minister on Oct. 29 and decided that children in its 79 homes can go into family care. The nuns in a Nov. 2 press release said they had agreed to register all their childcare homes with respective state governments as man-dated by the Juvenile Justice Act of 2015. Most MC homes for children are already registered and the remaining homes are in the process of completing registration formalities, the release said.

The decision of India’s top court to allow women of reproductive age to enter a Hindu temple in Kerala has snowballed into massive street protests and started a debate on gender inequality in other religions including Christianity and Islam.

Thousands of Hindus, mostly women, continue to protest on the streets of the southern state against allowing women aged 10-50 to enter the 12th century Sabarimala, a popular hilltop temple. The Supreme Court in its Sept. 28 ruling said “the attribute of devotion to divinity cannot be subjected to the rigidity and stereotypes of gender.” The ban was an expression of gender discrimination, it said.

Christian groups, which together form some 18% of Kerala’s 33 million people, have not taken any stand in the dispute.

Father Varghese Vallikkatt, spokesman for the regional bishops’ council, said there was no need for the church to intervene. “The Hindus protesting for their faith are enlightened enough to resolve the issue,” he told ucanews.com.

However, Hindu leaders like Rahul Easwar believe the top court’s verdict sets a precedent for the court to interfere with the faith issues of other religions such as Christianity and Islam.

“There is absolute discrimination in the church that women cannot do what men do. Women are endowed with the ability to reproduce and thus they are treated as unclean,” said Virginia Saldana, a theologian in Mumbai.

She told ucanews.com that Vatican II had “removed this idea of women as unclean, but still they are not given their due share in the church.”

There is a custom among Christian women in India to abstain from entering a church for 40 days after giving birth.

“Though I visited church after my delivery, my parents and seniors strictly asked me not to step inside the church and pollute it. I had to follow them,” said Christian activist Philomina Joseph.

In some Catholic Churches, nuns and women distribute communion but are not allowed to enter the area of the altar.

According to Holy Spirit nun Sister Lizy Thomas, based in Madhya Pradesh State, the problem rests with the mindset and perception of men, which keeps away women, including nuns, from leadership positions in the church.

“Generally, men tend to treat women as inferior and until and unless it is changed, gender equality is a mirage in the Catholic Church,” she said.

Astrid Lobo Gajiwala, a women’s leader and theologian based in Mumbai, said women in the Catholic Church have been asking for gender equality for ages.

Bishop Gerald Almeida of Jabalpur said: “The Catholic Church is all in favour of the maximum participation of women in all activities of the church except the ordination of women.”

Benny D’Souza remembers good past times at Christmas when he enjoyed a week of sumptuous meals and quality time in India’s western Pune city with a local Christian Mascarenhas family that traces its roots to Portuguese missionaries.

“We were poor and the parish organized that I have lunch and spend the evening with the Mascarenhas family, and come home for the night,” said D’Souza, 55, father of a son and daughter.

“The daily visits for a week made me feel on top of the world.”

The help came as part of the Small Christian Community (SCC) activities of the Immaculate Conception Church in Poona Diocese. Poona is the former name of Pune.

The growth of such communities across India helps narrow a rich-poor divide, and caste-based discrimination, in hundreds of village parishes, a group of Indian bishops recently explained.

For example, Archbishop Anil Joseph Couto of Delhi noted that in Poona Diocese rich and influential people mingle with others who are poor and not so well educated.

Archbishop Couto was among 41 bishops and four archbishops, who met on Sept. 17-20 for a bishops’ colloquium on Small Christian Communities. The theme was: ‘Bishops are builders of communities to re-vitalize the Church.’

The bishops met and interacted with families and various groups in several parishes of the diocese.

A Christian veterinary surgeon was arrested by the Jharkhand police on charges of forcibly converting a 13-year-old girl by offering her money. The arrest took place in Pakur on October 16, following the complaint filed by the child’s father the day before.

Speaking to AsiaNews Sajan K George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), condemns “the arrest of the Christian, according to the Jharkhand Freedom of Religion Act [the anti-conversion law in force in the State, ed.]. We are suspicious of the arrest, given that recently Jharkhand is a hotbed of persecution against Christians.

The arrested person is called Dalu Soren and lives in the village of Sawanlapur. He is a cattle inspector in Chatarpur, in the Pakur district, and he also runs a school in his village. Some report that in the past he has already been accused of forced conversions against minors, and that is why he moved to the place where he resides.

Advocate Deepika Rajawat, who fought to seek justice in the Kathua rape-and- murder case, has won the Mother Teresa Memorial Award-2018 for social justice.

The Harmony Foundation hosted the 14th annual Mother Teresa Memorial Awards- 2018, at the Taj Lands End, Mumbai. At the award ceremony, people who rescued women and children from captivity along with the survivors of sexual abuse and slavery, who are now leading the fight against this social evil, were honoured.