The head of the Catholic Church in India on July 27 expressed shock at the National Commission for Women’s demand for a ban on the Christian practice of confession. “This demand by the commission betrays a total lack of understanding of the nature, meaning, sanctity and importance of this Sacrament for our people; and also an ignorance of the strict laws of the Church to prevent any abuse,” Cardinal Oswald Gracias, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, said in a press release.

The 73-year-old prelate, one of the eight cardinal advisers of Pope Francis, said such a ban will directly infringe on “our freedom of religion guaranteed by the Indian Constitution.”

According to him, millions of people from all over the world, over the centuries, have testified to the spiritual benefit of this Sacrament and to the grace, pardon and peace they have experienced as a result of receiving this Sacrament. “I am confident the government will totally ignore this absurd demand from the commission,” he added.

The cardinal was reacting to commission chairperson Rekha Sharma’s recommendation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and some of his cabinet colleagues to take steps to abolish the practice of confession in Christian Churches. The commission, a statutory body concerned with advising the Indian government on policy matters affecting women, reportedly recommended confession’s abolition alleging that the practice could lead to blackmailing of women.

Sharma on July 26 said priests pressured women into telling their secrets. “We have one such case in front of us, there must be many more such cases and what we have right now is just a tip of the iceberg,” she said.

The recommendations come in the backdrop of a rape case against four priests of Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church accused of sexually exploiting a married woman belonging to their church.

The issue came to the fore after the victim’s husband wrote to the Church, alleging that the priests blackmailed and abused his wife, a school teacher.

Leaders of various national women’s organizations and human rights activists in India have requested the Vatican to advise Pope Francis to remove Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jalandhar from his post at least until an investigation was on his alleged sexual harassment of a nun. The women leaders on July 25 submitted a memorandum to Apostolic Nuncio to India Archbishop Giambattista Diquattro.

A member of the Missionaries of Jesus congregation in June filed a police complaint against the bishop alleging that he had sexually abused her several times during 2014-2016.

One of the women leaders, Annie Raja, general secretary of the National Federation of Indian Women, said an impartial inquiry could be conducted only if the bishop stepped down. The activists have already taken up the matter with the National Women Commission, which has assured all help to the aggrieved nun.

During a recent visit to the headquarters of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Father Ajay Kumar Singh of the Odisha Forum for Social Action advocated for the suppressed Christians of his eastern Indian state. “After 10 years there is hardly any justice for these communities,” said Father Singh.

The Catholic priest declared that the attacks of 2008 were the worst the country has seen in 300 years. “The violence claimed 101 lives, more than 350 churches were destroyed, 7500 houses were reduced to ashes, scores of convents, presbyteries, dispensaries and 13 humanitarian organisations were also attacked and vandalised. The riots spread to 450 villages in Kandhamal district alone.”

As time moves on buildings are rebuilt; the news headlines change, memories fade. But what is the state of the Christian community in Odisha and around India 10 years on?

In 2014, six years after the Kandhamal attacks, the “secularist” Indian National Congress party was voted out of power, in favour of the nationalist party the Bharatiya Janata Party.

As many as 2.52 crore minority students, half of them girls, availed three scholarship schemes being offered by the government, Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said today. Naqvi said in Lok Sabha that scholarships are being given for the education empowerment of minority students, including girl students all over the country.

All the three scholarship schemes are implemented through the National Scholarship Portal and the disbursement of scholarship is made under the Direct Benefit Transfer mode, which eliminates duplication and leakage, he said during the Question Hour.

Naqvi said so far 2.52 crore students belonging to minority communities have availed the scholarships, 50% of whom were girls.

Jayant Sinha is a Celtics fan. He graduated from Harvard. He worked for McKinsey. Born and raised in India but minted in the United States, he found wealth and success in the Boston area. His American friends say his politics were moderate, maybe even progressive.

Then he returned to India.

He ditched the suits he had worn as a partner at McKinsey & Company, an elite management consulting firm, in favour of traditional Indian kurtas. He joined the governing Hindu right political party and became a member of Parliament and then a minister, leading Hindu parades and showering worshipers with flower petals from a helicopter.

This month, he also feted and garlanded eight murderers who were part of a Hindu lynch mob that the authorities said beat an unarmed and terrified Muslim man to death. His embrace of the convicted killers has become the political stunt that Indians can’t stop talking about.

Across the country, the images of Mr. Sinha draping wreaths of marigolds around the men’s necks have started a conversation about whether the state of Indian politics has become so poisoned by sectarian hatred and extremism that even an ostensibly worldly and successful politician can’t resist its pull.

Abp Thomas D’Souza of Calcutta on Sunday reacted strongly to author Taslima Nasreen’s controversial tweet criticising Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity founded by her. Missionaries of Charity spokesperson Sunita Kumar told PTI that such comments “hurt her.” “I will not speak anything on this but it hurts me to hear such things,” Ms Kumar told PTI. The controversial Bangladeshi author had tweeted, saying “Mother Teresa charity home sells babies, it is nothing new.

A group of progressive Catholic religious priests, nuns and laity has mounted pressure on Vatican to act against an Indian Bishop accused of raping a Catholic nun.

They have urged the Apostolic nuncio to India Archbishop Giambattista Diquattro and President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) Cardinal Oswald Gracias to advise Pope Francis to relieve the accused bishop of his pastoral responsibilities to pave way for an impartial probe.

The survivor in her complaint accused the prelate of raping her 13-times between 2014–2016 in a convent in Kerala where she was superior. Both the nun and the prelate are from Kerala. She belongs to a local congregation of women working in Jalandhar diocese under the direct control of the accused prelate.

But Bp Mulakkal told a Malayalam TV channel from his office in Jalandhar that he has not even been contacted by the police. He also said he has not applied for any anticipatory bail, because he has “done no wrong.”

The 167 member group led by Indian Christian Women Movement consisting nearly 70 nuns 15 priests and the laity exhorted the Church leadership to prove its “zero tolerance to sex abuse” in the Church with the removal of the prelate from all pastoral responsibilities.

Other issues raised in the letter as follows;
1. Every diocese respects and complies with the State laws with regard to addressing abuse cases of minors and sexual harassment of women in the Church.

2. The policy to prevent and deal with Sexual Abuse of Minors and Vulnerable Adults, as well as the Policy to prevent and deal with the Sexual Harassment of Women in the Workplace are disseminated to all the faithful and stake holders in Church and Church institutions so that they can be effectively implemented.

3. The required structures are set up within every diocese of the Church in India to address cases of sexual abuse and to prevent repeat bungling and criminal activity, not to speak of untold damage to the reputation of the Church and the faith of its people.

4. Greater attention is paid to the choice of candidates for the priesthood as well as to their formation in the seminary. This must include conscientization with regard to patriarchal attitudes that promote condescension and even aggression towards those considered “inferior,” and clericalism that is perceived to place the ordained outside civil law and permits lack of accountability and transparency.

5. Catholic Church leadership in India does not take a silent or indifferent stand when a case is reported because it apparently protects the perpetrator. When a man who represents God to people, is a sexual offender, faith in the God he represents is shaken to the core.

A group of Catholic women from Kerala who spent five days in Kandhamal say the faith of Odisha’s persecuted Christians has deepened their belief in Christ. “The Christians of Kandhamal have manifested a deep-rooted faith in Christ by facing the worst religious persecution in modern India,” said Sister Josia Padinjaradathu, a member of the 11-member team representing the Women Commission of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council. “I am deeply touched and moved by listening to the survivors of Kandhamal,” she told Matters India.

The June 26-30 visit was a part of the Women Council of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India’s national reach out program in Kandhamal.

Sister Talisha Nadukudiyil, secretary of the council who arranged the visit, noted that Kandhamal was the epicentre of anti-Christian persecution in Odisha in 2007 and 2008. At least 100 people, mostly Christians, were killed and more than 56,000 people were rendered home-less. Hundreds of churches and houses were also destroyed in the mayhem that lasted for months.