Category: From The States

Condemning the growing communal violence in the country, the Catholic Church in India has appealed to the people to “rise above religion, caste, language or region and to unite in promoting peace, harmony and brotherhood.”

In a statement issued on July 11, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) said the “lynchings, killings, terrorist attacks in recent times are frightening and worrying.”

The bishops stated the militant attack on Hindu pilgrims returning from Amarnath shrine in Kashmir on July 10 was “dastardly and cowardly.” Seven pilgrims were killed and 12 were wounded as the bus they travelled got caught up in a gun battle between the militants and police near the town of Anantnag.

“This last attack is another sign of the flames of violence that seem to be unfortunately engulfing the country,” said the statement signed by Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas, CBCI Secretary General.

Department of biotechno-logy, ministry of science and technology, Government of India, has awarded star college status to city-based St Agnes College. The status was awarded on June 30.
Sr M Jeswina, principal, said the institution was reco-gnized for its outstanding performance in the field of science and technology.

From its inception, St Agnes College, a Catholic women’s college in the West Coast of India established in 1921 by Mother Aloysia, has proved to be a standard bearer of repute in the field of education.

The ‘Star College’ status comes in the wake of the college receiving recognition of College of Excellence from UGC in February and ‘A+’ Grade in cycle four from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) in March 2017. St Agnes is the second college in Karnataka to be conferred with star status. The college had applied for financial assistance under Star College Scheme in 2011. In 2012, it received financial assistance for physics, chemis-try, botany, zoology and micro-biology under the scheme.

A Salesian college in Kerala suffered huge losses after miscreants attacked it for taking disciplinary action against a student. The authorities of the Don Bosco College, Sultan Bathery in Wayanad district, have blamed the activists of the Student Federation of India (SFI) and the Democratic Youth Front of India (DYFI) for the July 11 attack.

Catholic communicators in northeast to fight fake news 

The need to highlight truth amid lies and promote peace in a troubled region was stressed at a meeting of Catholic communicators of north-eastern India. Signis (fire) is an international media moment recognized by the Catholic Church. Northeast is one of its 14 regions in India. The region held its annual general body meeting on July 8 at Inspiration building in Guwahati, the commercial capital of Assam State.

Hundreds attend visionary missionary’s funeral 

Sacred Heart Church in Mumbai’s Andheri East suburb was packed with people on July 6 for the funeral Mass of Father Augustine Kanjamala, a renowned theologian and missiologist.
He died at Holy Spirit Hospital, Mumbai. He was 78.

Bishop Chacko Thottumarikal of Indore, who led the Mass, noted that the Divine Word priest served the Church intensely with his visionary leadership in evangelization.

Priest arrested for child abuse

Christian leaders say that a Catholic priest arrested for abusing a child in the central Indian State of Madhya Pradesh has been framed to malign the Christian community in the state ruled by a pro-Hindu party.

On July 10, police arrested Father Leo D’Souza, 56, following a complaint from the parents of an eighth-grade boy of the church-run Amar Jyoti School in India a Hindu nation.

The priest is manager of the school run by Jabalpur Diocese.

Bishop Gerald Almeida of Jabalpur said the accusation and the arrest has “shocked” the diocese. He said hard-line Hindu groups had earlier tried to create trouble for Christians accusing them of converting tribal people to Christianity.

The nuns of the Provincial House of the Congregation of the Mother of Carmel (CMC) providing accomodation to the transgenders employed by Kochi Metro who were facing homelessness.

In one of the first major initiatives to employ transgen-ders, the Kochi Metro Rail Ltd (KMRL) hired 23 trans employees through a Kerala government poverty eradication programme aimed at women called Kudumbasree. However, no one was willing to provide the transgenders accommo-dation, and many of them were forced to skip work.

The KMRL has now been able to solve the problem, with the commitment from the CMC nuns. Sister Pavithra of CMC confirmed to Catch that the Congregation will provide “shelter to the transgenders working in KMRL.”

The nuns got the letter from Kochi Metro and are yet to figure the logistics. “They haven’t yet told us the number of people who want to reside. May be 12-13,” she said.

Protestors waved flags and chanted as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived at the White House on June 26 for a meeting with President Donald Trump.

“We’re here basically to raise awareness of the human rights violations that are happening with India,” Jatinder Grewal, director of Sikhs for Justice told CBN News.

The protestors alleged that under Modi’s rule, conditions for Sikhs, Christians and other religious minorities have grown difficult.

“When Modi came into power in 2014 he promised the Christians and other minorities that he would allow freedom of religion, he lied,” declared Pastor Rob Rotola, who also protested outside the White House.

“The only people that have favored status in India is not all people; it’s the Hindu nationalist,” he said. “It’s the far extremist party that tends to violence. And as these groups have ramped up the violence, the police state and the government looks the other way, and is allowing it to happen.”

“I am here to speak for the Indian church,” said Bishop John Lutembeka, a missionary in India, “the Indians who are being persecuted by Prime Minister Modi, by a group of radical Hindus.”

A Mumbai-based NGO on June 27 urged the United Nations to declare August 26, the birth anniversary of St Mother Teresa, International Compassion Day. In a state-ment, Harmony Foundation President Abraham Mathai said compassion is the need of the hour and what better way to have the world observe Inter-national Day of Compassion than by celebrating it on the birth anniversary of Mother Teresa, “whose life symbolised compassion and hope.”

“The Harmony Foundation has decided to celebrate August 26 as the International Day of Compassion to commemorate Mother Teresa’s work among the poorest, hungry, homeless, crippled, lepers and the most unwanted people of society shunned by all. We have written to the UN to likewise declare the day in honour of her selfless services,” Mathai said.

“Islam and Christianity are alien” to India, NDAs Presi-dential candidate Ram Nath Kovind said seven years ago when he was just appointed a BJP spokesperson. Kovind, then a little known BJP leader, addressed a press conference at the BJP headquarters here on March 26, 2010, sought that the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission, which had recommended inclusion of Muslim and Christian converts among the Scheduled Castes, be “scra-pped” and called the move “unconstitutional.”

Asked then by an IANS correspondent as to how Sikh Dalits could enjoy the quota privilege in the same category, he responded: “Islam and Christianity are alien to the nation.” A Supreme Court ruling on March 25 that year had upheld the Andhra Pradesh government’s decision to allow four per cent job quota for backward Muslims.

The proposed reservation for backward Muslims was a burning issue then as the National Commission on Religious and Linguistic Minorities, headed by Justice Misra, former Chief Justice of India, had in a report recommended that backward Muslim and Christian converts should be accorded Scheduled Castes status and given a quota. Kovind, an RSS loyalist who worked for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, said the Misra Committee recommendations were not possible to implement. “Including Muslims and Christians in the Scheduled Castes category will be unconstitutinal,” the lawyer-turned-politician said.Indian society,” he said.