A 43-year-old Catholic nurse in India died on Christmas Day from breast cancer, two years after she refused her doctor’s advice to get an abortion, so she could begin chemotherapy.

Sapna Tracy, who already had seven children, refused to sacrifice the life of her child, giving birth to her daughter Philomena in December 2015.

“I visited the family on Christmas Day, the day she died, and her husband was carrying the baby in his arms, saying ‘Praise be to Jesus.’ Sapna stood for life. Sapna stood for being pro-life. She wasn’t afraid,” Archbishop Mar Andrews Thazhath, of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Archdiocese of Thrissur, told Crux.

The nurse lived with her husband, Chittilappally Joju, and her children, all under the age of 15.

Both had been active in various Catholic organizations as young people, and had been working with pro-life advocacy in their married life.

She worked as a nurse at the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi.

The Syro-Malabar Catholic Eparchy of Faridabad gave an award to the couple to honor them for their large family.

“This Catholic couple was inspirational in their witness of the Gospel message,” said Faridabad Archbishop Kuriakose Bharanikulangara.

He told Crux he personally baptized Philomena, as well as the couple’s previous child.

“In our Eparchy, since 2012, I have initiated that any couple having four or more children, the children will be baptized by the bishop,” Bharanikulangara.

Tracy’s husband has been telling the story of his wife to the people of India hoping it will provide an example.

Indian Vice President Venkiah Naidu on December 12 commended Christians for their service to those on the periphery and share in building a new India.

“The Catholic community is peace-loving and it contributes immensely to nation building,” the vice president told a gathering that the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) organized to launch Christmas celebrations in the national capital.

“I have been attending Christmas functions at different parts of India as part of my political and social activities. This is the first occasion as the vice president of India that I am participating in a Christmas celebration,” said Naidu, who assumed the second highest officer in the country on August 11, this year.

The vice president asserted that Jesus’s message for love and peace is for all seasons, cultures and nationalities. “People all over the world irrespective of caste, creed or nationality celebrate Christmas with great joy and gaiety,” the vice president, the chief guest of the program, told the gathering comprising religious, political and social leaders as well as diplomats and media persons.

Christian community, especially Catholics, work for people’s welfare. “They maintain best educational institutions in the country that create awareness about the need for education and education for the needy.”

Christians have opened thousands of dispensaries and hospitals in remote areas and collaborate with the central and state governments. “The Christian community as a whole is assiduously engaged in contributing their share in building a new India which is united and strong,” the vice president said and added that he has personally witnessed how Christian helped in social transformation through formal and non-formal education.

Dalit Christians, under the aegis of the Council of Dalit Chri-stians, held a march to the Secretariat on Dec. 12 demanding prote-ction of re-servation for Dalit Christians.

The rally, organised by the Council of Dalit Christians (CDC), raised the demand of 5% reservation for Dalit Christians in Union government recruitments and 4% reservation in the State. It also demanded 10% reservation for students of the community in higher education. Inaugurating the rally, Church of South India (CSI) moderator Thomas K. Oommen said the discrimination of people based on their religious beliefs was violation of the Constitution.

The rally began from the Museum junction. People from various districts, including women and children, joined the rally. “This is not merely a community issue but a church issue as 95% of Indian Christians are Dalit,” CSI Kollam-Kottarakara Bishop Oommen George said.

Forty-one young women from ethnic minority groups took vows to become Catholic nuns in a rare event of this scale in the eastern Indian State of Jharkhand.

Church leaders welcomed what they described as a trend for more tribal people to choose a religious path in life.

More than 1,000 Catholics, including families and parishi-oners of the women, gathered December 8 for the ceremony at the Nirmala Catholic Church in the State capital, Ranchi.

The women took vows to become nuns of the indigenous congregation of Daughters of St Anne. “This is a great sign that young people are attracted to religious life,” Cardinal Telesphore Toppo of Ranchi, who officiated at the ceremony, told.

It also showed that the Indian Church was thriving despite opposition from Hindu nationalist groups, the cardinal added.

An Indian Catholic leader has slammed an inflammatory call by a radical Hindu group for the execution of people who slaughter cattle or transport beef.

Bishop Vincent Barwa, who chairs the bishops’ office for ethnic minorities and lower caste people, said the demand by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council-VHP) sought to create violence and religious divisions.

The senior prelate was responding to ucanews.com following media reports that the VHP had resolved to press for a national law against cow slaughter stipulating death sentences for violators.

Laws restricting the slaughter of cows, bulls and bullocks exist in 20 of India’s 29 states. Since the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party came to power nationally in 2014, India has witnessed more than 20 mob lynchings connected with what is generally referred to as “cow slau-ghter.” The media have widely reported orchestrated attacks on Muslims and Dalits, formerly known as untouchables, by so-called cow vigilantes. A report, compiled by India Spend, India’s first data journalism outfit, found that Muslims were targeted in 51% of violence connected with bovine issues between 2010 to 2017.

Pope Francis has appointed Fr James Raphael Anaparambil as the coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of Alleppey in Kerala on Dec 7.

Bishop-elect Anaparambil was born in Chellanam in Alleppey diocese on March 7, 1962. He was ordained priest for the same diocese on December 17, 1986.

Despite all Constitutional guarantees of India being a sovereign socialist, secular, democratic republic, the minority sections in India — Dalits, creative artists, writers, rationalists and sensitive, enlightened citizens — are all feeling suffocated, insecure and less-than-equal citizens of India since the communal ideology has come into power at the Centre and some big Indian states.

This was stated by scholars from Delhi, Panjab and Punjab varsities and representatives of minority organisations from across India during a two-day seminar which concluded at the Institute of Sikh Studies (IOSS), Chandigarh, here today. Prof Kulwant Singh, president, IOSS, highlighted several acts of intolerance and violence by those in majority.

Prof Apoorva Nand from Delhi University said: “When saffron fanaticism is being promoted under the garb of nationalism, majority of Hindus are answerable for the undesirable activities of some fringe radical, vocal elements. In fact, it is not only a struggle between majority and minority communities, but also a struggle between the enlightened and half-baked Hindutva zealots.”

Prof Khalid Mohd from Panjab University said Muslim bashing was rampant under the garb of terrorism, love jihad, ghar vapsi, triple talaq, four marriages and beef-eating, etc. “History is sought to be reinterpreted where Muslims are being exhibited only as traitors and all their monuments are projected to be built after destroying Hindu temples.”

Former Punjab Vidhan Sabha Deputy Speaker Bir Devinder Singh said the doctrine of religion-based majoritarianism should diminish in India.

Mumbai: St Pius X College, the seminary of the archdiocese of Bombay, is all set to stage a play in Hindi on Blessed Oscar Romero of El Salvador, who was shot dead while celebrating Mass in 1980. “Oscar Romero and Jesus of Nazareth had many similarities,” says Father Nigel Barrett, spokesman for the archdiocese of Bombay explaining the reason for the major seminary to stage ‘Nirnayon ka Jeevan (A Life of Decisions)’ during the birth centenary year of the El Salvadorian prelate. According to the Mumbai priest, both Jesus and Romero were born in abject poverty, in a small and insignificant country. “Both learned the trade of carpentry. They lived a life of profound intimacy with God, often praying all night.”

As Pope Francis began his tour to Myanmar and Bangladesh, Catholics in neighboring India regret missing a chance to meet him in their homeland, nostalgi-cally recalling past papal visits.

Catholic groups began discussing plans to host the pontiff after the Vatican early this year confirmed a papal visit to the region. Nobody then expected a papal itinerary would not include India, a nation of 19 million Catholics.

Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, president of the Indian Catholic Bishops’ Confer-ence, said the Indian Catholic Church was expecting to receive Pope Francis.

“But it did not happen,” he lamented.

In August, the Vatican announced that the Nov. 27-Dec. 2 journey would only include Myanmar and Bangladesh, whereas the original plan had been to visit India and Bangladesh.

The lack of an official invitation for Pope Francis to visit India is widely seen as being the result of political consi-derations by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. The government is run by the rightwing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Observers say the BJP feared that Modi hosting Pope Francis would have alienated majority-Hindu voters ahead of scheduled 2019 national elections.

However, Cardinal George Alencherry of Ernakulam-Angamaly, said the outcome had disappointed the entire Indian church. Cardinal Alencherry joined in the papal Mass in Bangladesh.

A wide cross-section of people ucanews.com spoke to in India said a papal visit would have uplifted Christians now facing violence and threats from hardline Hindu groups, especially in northern India.

One of those who are unhappy about Pope Francis now not visiting India is Johana Xalxo, an Oraon ethnic minority women and a school principal in the capital, New Delhi.