Religious conversion for marriage must be done only after fully knowing the rituals and customs of the chosen faith, an Indian court has said amid controversies surrounding inter-faith marriages in the South Asian nation.
People who convert to marry should be fully aware of “the consequences of such actions,” A.C Michael, a former member of the state-run Delhi Minority Commission, told on Jan. 23, while reacting to the order by the Delhi High Court in India’s national capital.
High Court judge, Swarana Kanta Sharma, cautioned agai-nst religious conversion for the purpose of marriage on Jan. 19.
It is important to inform the individual with exhaustive infor-mation concerning “doctrines, customs, and practices asso-ciated with the chosen faith,” Sharma observed.
Eleven Indian states, most of them ruled by Modi’s party, have enacted a sweeping anti-conversion law, criminalizing religious conversion with a jail term of up to 10 years.
Petitions are pending in the Supreme Court challenging these anti-conversion laws.
Leading states like Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have criminalized inter-faith marri-ages, especially between Hindu girls with Christian and Muslim boys.
Modi’s party calls Muslim youths marrying Hindu girls “Love Jihad”.

A Catholic archbishop in the central Indian Chhattisgarh state has urged his Catholics to remain united in their faith amid claims by a Hindu group of having converted about 250 Christian families to the Hindu religion.
Archbishop Victor Henry Thakur of Raipur told UCA News on Jan 29 that “it is time we should be united and firm in our faith as there will be attempts to divide people in the name of religion, caste and creed.”
A group of some 1,000 people from 251 families, two of them Muslim and the rest Christian, were welcomed into the Hindu religion, reported Organiser, a mouthpiece of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an umbrella forum of pro-Hindu groups.
The conversion ritual involves washing feet with water from the river Ganges. It was reportedly held on Jan. 27 in Raipur, the state capital, in the presence of Pandit Dhirendra Krishna Shastri, a Hindu seer, and Prabal Pratap Singh Judev, state secretary of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“Hindus who had once come under some pressure or greed, and joined other religions or sects… They are now coming back to the Sanatan Dharma [eternal religion],” Judev said.
Judev claimed that “large-scale conversions to Christianity have taken place in Chhattisgarh” and so “the Ghar Wapsi [homecoming] campaign will go forward with all might.”
The homecoming is a nationwide campaign initiated by hardline Hindu groups aligned with the BJP and its ideological parent RSS three decades ago. It aims to convert Christians and Muslims to the Hindu religion, claiming Hinduism is the common home and original religion of all Indians.
Though Christians comprise less than 2 percent of Chhattisgarh’s 30 million population, the Hindu groups claim the actual number is much higher.

A Catholic priest was sent to judicial custody on January 7 on an alleged disappearance of 26 girls from a hostel managed by the Church in Bhopal district of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
Carmelite of Mary Immaculate Father Anil Mathew was reportedly sent to the Bhopal Central Jail after the state government threatened take action against those responsible for the girls allegedly missing from Aanchal (lap) Hostel that the congregation managed at Tara Savania village under Parvalia police station.

Sister Anne Mathew spends most of her time in eucharistic adoration in a home for elderly nuns in a southern Indian town.
“Prayer works for me and is my strength,” the 81-year-old former nurse, who had worked for years in Austria and Switzerland, told Global Sisters Report.

Pope Francis on December 30 appointed an archbishop and three bishops in India. The Pope transferred Bishop Vincent Aind of Bagdogra, a diocese in West Bengal, to Jharkhand state as the new archbishop of Ranchi, the mother diocese of India’s tribal Church.
The two new bishops-elect are Father Peter Rumal Kharadi (photo) as the bishop of Jhabua in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and Father Bernard Lancy Pinto as the bishop of Aurangabad, another diocese in Maharashtra.

The Archdiocese of Trichur together with the general public has organized the annual Buon Natale (Merry Christmas) presenting nearly 15,000 Santa Clauses, or Christmas Papas.
The colorful and joyful program showed Santa, irrespective of age, dancing, walking, roller skating and on wheelchairs. More than 500,000 people watched the procession that started from St Thomas Ground before returning to the same ground after four hours.

Nepal police said January 10 they had arrested a spiritual leader whose followers believe him to be a reincarnation of Buddha over allegations of disappearances and rape at his ashrams.
Ram Bahadur Bomjan, known as “Buddha Boy” among devotees, became famous as a teenager after followers said he could meditate motionless for months without water, food or sleep.
The 33-year-old guru has a devout following but has long been accused of physically and sexually assaulting his followers, and had been hiding from authorities for several years.
“He was arrested after absconding for several years,” police spokesman Kuber Kadayat told AFP.
Police apprehended Bomjan in Kathmandu on a warrant issued for his alleged rape of a minor at an ashram in Sarlahi, a district south of the capital.
They said he was caught with bundles of cash amounting to 30 million Nepali rupees ($225,000) and another $22,500 in foreign currency.

The election of Bishop Raphael Thattil as the Syro-Malabar Church leader has brought high hopes for its members, especially the Catholics in the troubled Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese.
“I am sure he will listen to the sane voices on the controversies concerning the Syro-Malabar Church,” says Capuchin Father Suresh Mathew, former editor of Indian Currents weekly who sees in the new major archbishop “a good shepherd with the smell of the sheep” as he was always seen with the people in the peripheries.
Father Mathew, a member of the Syro-Malabar Church now based in the northern Indian state of Punjab, says the new major archbishop’s success as an administrator will “depend on his capacity to accommodate diversities. His pastoral experience in the mission will be an added asset to him.”
Among those welcoming the new major archbishop are the Almaya Munnetam (laity front) and the Archdiocesan Protection Committee of the Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese.
“The faithful and priests of the Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese are looking forward to the new Major Archbishop with hope,” says Riju Kanjookaren, spokesperson of the laity front that is involved in the liturgical dispute, a vexing problem for the larger of the two Oriental Catholic rites in India.
A statement from the laity front sees “a pointer to the future” in the new major archbishop’s opening statement that the Church is not only for bishops, but for everyone – the faithful, priests and the religious.
“The entire Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese listened with great hope to the new leader’s explanation that synodality is walking with and listening to the faithful and priests. “We also felt assured when he said he would continue to be the same priest and the bishop we are familiar with,” the statement added.
Therefore, the laity front expects the new leader to resolve the problems in the archdiocese, as a first priority after his installation on January 11.

A sense of joy and hope spread across activists and women groups in India January 8 after the Supreme Court set aside the Gujarat government’s premature release of 11 convicted in a gangrape case.
The apex court termed the Gujarat government order a “fraud act” and asked the convicts to surrender in two weeks and return to jail.
“The verdict brings to the entire nation a silver line of hope in the judiciary. People’s trust in the judiciary increased,” says Sister Jessy Kurian, a lawyer who was present when the apex court pronounced its decision.
Sounding the same sentiments, Teesta Setalvad, secretary of the Citizens for Justice and Peace that works for the victims of 2002 Gujarat riots, says the apex court has “re-validated the ordinary citizens’ faith in its commitment to the rule of law, the Indian Constitution.”
She noted that the court quashed the Gujarat government’s “brazen conduct” in passing the remission orders, set aside the Gujarat High Court judgement that endorsed the government decision and turned down the federal home ministry’s role in allowing convicts to walk free.

Almost three months after his arrest, a Catholic priest in northern India charged under the country’s controversial anti-conversion laws after a complaint from a member of a Hindu nationalist organization has been granted bail and is set for release.
Father Sebastian “Babu” Francis, director of social work of Allahabad diocese in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, had been taken into police custody Oct. 2.
On Oct. 1, a local leader of the right-wing BJP party of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with a group of supporters, reportedly had barged into a Pentecostal prayer service falsely accusing the pastor of religious conversion. When police arrived on the scene, they also detained the pastor’s brother, who is a Catholic and who is employed with the diocesan social work department.
Eventually four members of the family were arrested, and, when they phoned Francis for help, the 56-year-old too was taken into custody.
Bishop Gerald Mathias of Lucknow, the capital city of Uttar Pradesh, told Crux at the time that the arrests amount to “sheer harassment of Christians.”