Light of Truth

Category: From The States

  • Hermit priest’s popularity brings attack from Hindu hardliners

    Hermit priest’s popularity brings attack from Hindu hardliners

    A Catholic priest has been arrested on false charges after being beaten up by a hard-line Hindu youth group in India’s Uttar Pradesh State. Father Vineet Vincent Pereira of Varanasi told ucanews.com that members of Hindu Yuva Vahini (youth force) came to his ashram in Gohana town in Mau district on Nov. 15 and attacked some of the elderly people living there with him.

    “When I objected, they beat me. One pulled me down holding my hair and dragged out. Then they hit me left and right,” he said. Those gathered around rescued him, said Father Pereira.
    Not long after the attack, police arrived and arrested him based on a complaint made by his attackers on charges of rioting and disturbing public peace. If found guilty, each charge carries a maximum jail term of two years.

    A local court bailed the 43-year-old priest on the same evening.

    Father John Abraham, the diocesan vicar general, told ucanews.com that the Hindu group must have been angry over Father Pereira’s popularity with Hindus who identify themselves as Christu Bhaktas (devotees of Christ).

    Father Pereira lives a hermit-like existence and regularly conducts prayers for around 1,500 of these people at his ashram, said Father Abraham. “None of them have become Christians, but they follow Christian spiritual values.”

  • Kerala bishops resent article criticizing confessions to priests

    An article published in Vijnaana Kairali, a monthly publication of the state-run Kerala Bhasha Institute, has become the centre of controversy after commenting on the practice of confession in Catholic Churches.

    The article has sparked criticism from the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC) as well as a response from the National Commission for Minorities (NCM).

    The sections of the article that the KCBC took objection to included the lines, “Jesus Christ has said that heaven is in the mind of he who confesses and regrets his action. It is the priesthood that should publicly confess for using the Utopian concept of heaven, which is only an imagination of the human mind, to satisfy their sexual desires. If you don’t consider woman’s body as a sexual object, no woman – whether she is a lover or a nun – should henceforth confess before anyone. Believers hide the fact that a man who confesses is not harassed anywhere. It is not enough to sing that you are not ready to die, but the women community should stand together and shout that they are not ready to confess.” But according to the Bhasha Institute, the article in its entirety discusses the opposition of Kerala’s middle class to so-called regressive traditions, and calls for a revitalization of progressiveness in society.

  • Indian nun dies in Tanzania in road accident

    Indian nun dies in Tanzania in road accident

    An Indian nun died in a road accident in Tanzania on Nov. 27. The 44-year-old victim is identified as Sister Rohini Pradhan, a native of the Kandhamal district of Odisha, eastern India.
    The accident occurred when the member of Carmelite Sisters of St Teresa went to the airport along with two other nuns, also Indians, to receive their superior general Sister Chris, who was making an official visit their convent in Tanzania.

  • Special postal cover on Rosario Cathedral released

    Special postal cover on Rosario Cathedral released

    Philatelists in and around Mangaluru will surely be delighted, for India Post has released a special cover depicting the Rosario Cathedral and an ornamental cancellation featuring ‘Rosary year’ emblem. The attractive cover was released by India Post at a symbolic church celebration on the occasion of the 450th anniversary of the cathedral. The cover has a splendid picture of the ‘Holy Rosary Cathedral’ a historical landmark of the city whose history goes back 450 years (1568-2018).

  • Dalit seminar empowers priests, religious to work for Poor

    As a follow-up activity earmarked by Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) Office for Dalits and Backward Classes, a three-day national conference of Dalit priests and Religious took place at Arnold Bhavan, Hyderabad, on November 13–15. Above 110 participants different parts of the India joined the program to share, deliberate and strategize so as to empower themselves and their people back in parishes and communities. The conference focused on “Pilgrimage Extension and Training.” Several dignitaries addressed and facilitated the members dealing with topics: media and effective pastoral ministry, creative ministries to empower the Dalit community members, and interpersonal relationship.

  • Priest’s “Five Loaves” restaurants set new trends

    Priest’s “Five Loaves” restaurants set new trends

    The ‘Anjappam’ collective initiated by a Capuchin priest to feed the hungry with love and respect has opened its fourth branch in Changanacherry in Kottayam district in Kerala on Nov 1st.

    The latest addition located in Panachikkal Buildings in the heart of Changanassery town was inaugurated by Capuchin Father Bobby Jose Kattikad, who is popularly known as ‘Bobbyachan.”

    Fr Kattikad is known for his preaching, writing and evangelization through television, radio and social media.

    Anjappam (five loaves), a concept visualized by Fr Kattikad and supported and facilitated by a community of friends who supports financially or otherwise, irrespective of caste or religion.

    Anjappam restaurants have no cash desk or bills. Instead it has a box kept inside where people make contributions if they wish to. During the day, the restaurants act as places where good, healthy meals are available at affordable prices and in the evenings, they are transformed into libraries with reading spaces. It also acts as a hub for discussions and book reviews.

    The restaurant chain funds itself through voluntary donations by customers. They uphold the thought that donations need not be in terms of money .Anyone who intends to help the poor and needy always have an option available here. This can be as spending one’s time at the restaurants, serving food and helping with cleaning activities.

    The restaurants serve only vegetarian food. The members of the Trust take care to ensure that a majority of the vegetables are acquired locally so that they can provide healthy as well as environment friendly food, which is good for both the body and mind.

    Anjappam also plans to distribute basic food packs free of cost to the homeless and other needy sections of society.

    Anjappam currently has three other branches in Kerala – Ranni, Neyyattinkara and Kozhencherry.

  • Bishop asks priests to walk the talk

    Bishop asks priests to walk the talk

    “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.”

  • Mother Teresa nuns back in India’s adoption system

    Mother Teresa nuns back in India’s adoption system

    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.

  • Indian appointed to new international Charismatic renewal body

    The Vatican has appointed an Indian lay leader to the 18-member Catholic Charismatic Renewal International Services, known as CHARIS.

    Cyril John, a former Indian bureaucrat, is one of the two Asians appointed by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life. The other Asian is Brother James Shin San-Hyun from South Korea.

    The dicastery, a department of the Roman Curia, on October 31 announced that Pope Francis has erected a new body, CHARIS, to provide a new, single, international service for the needs of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in the Church.

    Rome has appointed Dr Jean-Luc Moens, a member of the Emmanuel Community from Belgium, as the moderator of the new entity, and Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, papal preacher from Italy, as its Ecclesiastical Advisor. Shayne Bennett from Australia represents Oceania in the worldwide body.

    John, a native of Kuravilangad in Kerala, got involved in Charismatic renewal movement in 1982. He has been the chairman of the renewal in the Archdiocese of Delhi, chair-man of Indian National Service Team, Chairman of ICCRS Sub-Committee for Asia-Oceania since 2006 and was Vice-President of ICCRS Council from 2007 to 2015, according to a press release from K P Shaji, administrator of the National Charismatic Office based in New Delhi.

  • Indian Catholic entrepreneur uses skills to fight global poverty

    No matter when someone writes to Ashish Gadnis, there is almost no chance he will answer from Austin, Texas, where he lives. He spend in Rwanda and in Brazil, before taking a flight to Myanmar. He’s not a coffee grower, but he will talk about fair trade, and with a huge Benedictine cross on his chest, he will speak to you about Catholic Social Teaching providing a clear goal for his company – taking 100 million people out of poverty by 2026.

    And Gadnis knows what poverty is. He grew up in Mumbai, India, in the 1970s when there wasn’t “much options those days in India to get out of poverty.”

    “I did not want to stay in that ration line and I realized that I could break the cycle of poverty if I could get a job as a software programmer,” he recalled.

    But for a 20-year-old Indian it wasn’t really about education – it was about getting out of the country: “That’s the dogma – if you want a better life, you gotta go.”

    He immigrated first to Colombia and then, in 1994, landed in the United States. Ten years later, he was a founder and CEO of a successful IT company.