Category: From The States

A Baptist Church in India’s north-eastern Mizoram State has announced incenti-ves to encourage couples to have more babies in an effort to check their dwindling numbers, disregarding a natio-nal policy to control the population.

The church in remote Lunglei town said it will pay families a one-time cash assistance of 4,000 rupees (US$ 63) for a fourth child and an additional 1,000 rupees for each new child.

Influential youth organization Young Mizo Association endorsed the move. “What the church has done is worth emulating. We Mizos are facing a serious challenge of dwindling numbers. We need to arrest the trend and if possible to reverse it,” president Vanlalruata (only one name) told.

The Christian-majority Mizoram has about 1.1 million people, 88 percent of them Christians. Mizoram is among the least populous states in the country of 1.3 billion people. India, currently the world’s second most populous nation after China, implements a national policy to check population growth.

Josy Joseph, a leading investigative journalist, was among the winners of this year’s Crossword Book Awards, an Indian version of international literary wards. The Crossword Book Awards are considered as the Indian version of the Man Booker Prize and Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. It is currently in its 15th edition. This year the winners of both jury and popular choice awards for 10 categories were announced on January 18 at the Royal Opera House in Mumbai.

The Syro Malabar Church synod held a valedictory function of the silver jubilee celebration of the church attaining the archieprachy status at its headquarters at St Thomas Mount on Saturday, January 13. Louis Raphaël Sako Head of the Chaldean Catholic Church inaugurated a public meeting to be held on the occasion. Apostolic Nuncio to India and Nepal, Archbishop Giambattista Diquattro chaired the meeting.

Head of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church – Archbishop Cardinal George Alencherry, President of the Catholic Bishops’ Council of India (CBCI) and major archbishop of the Syro-Malankara Church – Baselios Cleemis and Secretary of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches Archbishop – Cyril Vasi> spoke on the occasion. Other speakers included Bishop Dr Francis Kallarakkal, Bishop Antony Kariyil, Supreme Court Judge Kurian Joseph , Dr Sibi – Superior General of CMC (Congregation of the Mother of Carmel ) congregation .

Pope John Paul II had on December 16, 1992 signed the decree raising the church as a major archiepiscopal church giving it autonomy in the selection of bishops and of the major archbishop who is the head of the church.

The church currently has 34 dioceses – of which 31 are in India. It serves 5 million followers spread across the globe. Chicago in the United States, Melbourne in Australia and Preston in the United Kingdom are its dioceses outside India.

A total of 59 bishops are participating in the synod, which will end on January 13.

Pope Francis’s visit to Bangladesh “was a celebration of our cultural identity, of harmony, of diversity, and peace,” according to the country’s first cardinal.

Card. Patrick D’Rozario, Archbishop of Dhaka, was in neighbouring India this week, on a family visit in Kolkata. During his stay, he spoke to Crux.

D’Rozario was created a cardinal by Francis on November 19, 2016.

“The expectations of the people – of everyone – was fulfilled: The Catholics, people of other denominations and other faiths, and of the government. All were actively involved in the preparation and participation, and God has done, providentially, much more than what we had planned.” The pope visited Bangladesh from Nov. 30-Dec. 2, 2017, following his Nov. 27-30 visit to Myanmar.

Besides sharing a border, the two countries are also intertwined with the ongoing Rohingya crisis. Over 500,000 of Myanmar’s Muslim minori-ty have fled to Bangladesh since August, creating a dire huma-nitarian situation.

There are only about 350,000 Catholics in Bangladesh, about 0.2% of the total population. The country is over 86% Muslim, while another 12% is Hindu. Among the events Francis attended during his visit to the country was an interfaith meeting, where he met with members of the Rohingya community.

“The Christians in particular were very, very happy,” the cardinal said.

“They got to see the pope close up at all of the four big events, and so many could – unexpectedly – touch the pope, and this for them was a blessing and grace-filled moment.”

Some 5,000 Christians marched silently through India’s Jharkhand state demanding the release of six Christians jailed last week on complaints of offering money to villagers to attract them to Christianity. The Sept. 25 ecumenical “silent protest” was organized after a local court on Sept. 21 rejected the bail application of six Pentecostals, who were arrested Sept. 15 from Tukupani village in Simdega district.

“We wanted them to be released because they are innocent people who gathered for a prayer,” said Gladson Dungdung, a Catholic leader, who was among those who organized the protest in Tukupani. The court in Simdega district rejected the bail application of five men and a woman “seemingly under pressure from higher ups. But we are appealing to a higher court,” said Dungdung, who works for the rights of indigenous people. Bishop Vincent Barwa of Simdega said an “atmosphere of suspicion” exists after the state’s pro-Hindu government passed an anti-conversion law Aug. 12.

At the extremity of the village, amid the dim winter weather, a melancholic song coming from a nearby mudhouse made itself heard with singular distinction. The owner of the voice, 24-year-old Uzma Mukhtar, is busy aesthetically carving designs on a woolen rug.

In September, Jammu and Kashmir Catholic Social Service Society, the social service wing of the Catholic Church in the Muslim-dominated state, held an awareness camp in Uzma’s village in Pulwama district.

Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Bombay took lead in organising an inter-religious Christmas gathering on Dec. 17, following what has now become an annual feature before Christmas celebration in the archdiocese based in the financial capital of India.

Hindu, Islam, Sikh, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Jain and Christian leaders attended the interreligious prayer service and discussion seeking to find answers to the increasing conflicts.

“In our time, the differences seem to be growing: there are conflicts between persons, religious ideologies and nations. While we long for peace, it seems that this hope is a mirage,” archdiocesan spokesperson Father Nigel Barrett said, explaining the relevance of such gatherings.

The gathering gains importance in the wake of Pope Francis’ call to religions to shun violence and terrorism at an inter-religious meeting in the Vatican last month.