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.”

Two years of civil war, which has gradually intensified, have shaped the face and pastoral approach of priests, consecrated persons, catechists and pastoral workers in many dioceses of Myanmar, especially in the areas most affected by the conflict between the army and the People’s Defense Forces rebel groups, which have joined forces with the ethnic militias that have traditionally been active in Myanmar’s border areas. The social situation was characterized by the presence of massive flows of internally displaced persons: people forced to leave their homes to find refuge in the forests, far from violence, where they began to struggle to support themselves; or families seeking refuge in makeshift refugee camps – set up as best they can, sometimes by Catholic parishes. In order – in the words of Pope Francis – to “smell like sheep”, to be close to people and to share with them the needs and sufferings of daily life, priests, religious and catechists also temporarily leave their churches (for long periods or sometimes permanently) to go to places where the displaced people live under precarious conditions in barracks, huts or tents. A striking example is the Diocese of Loikaw, whose territory extends over the state of Kayah (eastern Myanmar), where the civil war is ongoing. Here even Bishop Celso Ba Shwe was expelled from the cathedral, which was first attacked and then occupied by the Burmese army, which made it their base camp. As confirmed to Fides, the Bishop lived a “Christmas among refugees”, traveling to the different areas and parishes of the diocese, celebrating the sacraments, visiting refugee camps, blessing and consoling families tormented by war and misery. “The Lord has given me a period of forced travel,” says the Bishop. “Despite the pain of having to leave the cathedral, all the goods and documents of our local Church – we do not know what we will find when all this is over – I welcome this grace with an open heart. The Lord allows me to meet so many people, to be closer to people than ever before, to listen and to comfort.”

The Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee joined Archbishop Thomas D’Souza of Kolkata at the solemn ‘Jubilee Year Door’ inaugural at the Cathedral of the Most Holy Rosary in Kolkata during a Christmas Eve function on December 24,2023.
After unveiling of the Christmas crib and offering floral tribute to baby Jesus, Archbishop D’Souza and Chief Minister Banerjee inaugurated the Jubilee Year Door of the Cathedral.

The need for encouraging genuine literature and art to withstand the onslaught of Artificial Intelligence (AI)was stressed at the launch of a cultural hub in a West Bengal town.
“While humans struggle to find the right word to describe a situation, AI might do this in a jiffy,” warns Madhumita Acharya, a professor of St Xavier’s College, Autonomous Raghabpur Campus. Acharya expressed fears that AI might soon encroach into literature.

Bethany Father Mathai Kadavil has been appointed as the new bishop of the Khadki diocese of the Syro-Malankara Church.
The appointment was announced in the St Mary’s Cathedral, Pattom, Thiruvananthapuram December 12. Earlier, Pope Francis approved the name of the 60-year-old priest after the Synod of Bishops of the Syro Malankara Major Archiepiscopal Church had elected as a bishop.

Pope Francis on December 11 received in audience Jesuit Archbishop Cyril Vasil, the Pontifical Delegate to the Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly, on the eve of the latter’s departure for Kerala, southern India, the base of the Syro-Malabar Church.

Chief Minister of Goa Pramod Pandurang Sawant joined government officials and civil service officers to celebrate Christmas at Pilar Pilgrim Centre in the western Indian state.
“Jesus came into the world to spread the message of peace, love and unity,” Sawant told the participants of the Festive Christmas High Tea on December 25 at the center, some 10 km southeast of Panaji, the state capital.
Sawant, an ayurveda medical practitioner serving as Goa’s eleventh chief minister since 2019 noted that “truth and service are two important messages in the Bible which tells us that service is the greatest form of love.”
The 50-year-old politician noted that harmony and unity has been Go’s identity. “In India, often there have been attempts to bring division among people on the basis of caste and religion, however, such attempts have been thwarted by the people of Goa. Since 1961, the rest of India sees Goa as the beacon of unity,” he added.
The host, Father Nazareth Fernandes, the superior general of the Society of Pilar, said that “Christmas is the celebration of peace, and Jesus the prince of peace, brings love, joy and peace from the Father.” He further said that “the Church becomes the visible face of Jesus Christ in her service to humankind.”
He also claimed that the members of the Pilar Society “are the visible face of Goans throughout India and abroad to carry the message of peace, harmony, joy and love that exists among Goans, although we may belong to different creeds.”