Valerie Gastager, a Ger-man student, was excited to eat what she grew at the farm of a Catholic convent in southern India.
“We harvested and ate the vegetables we grew,” Gastager said February 28 as she showed Global Sisters Report the kit-chen garden in the courtyard of the Helpers of Mount Rosary congregation at Alangar near Moodabidri, a town in the southwestern Indian state of Karnataka.
Valerie is among two male and two female students from German uni-versities who have come to study tropical agriculture on an exchange program to learn under the Helpers of Mount Rosary, a diocesan congregation in the Manga-lore Diocese.
As part of their nine-month training, which started in November, the Germans learn from the nuns how to cultivate grow vegetables and cash crops. Sister Theresia Mukkuzhy says teaching international students is the latest addition to the congregation’s mission.

Apostolic Carmel Sister Maria Nirmalini was elected the president of the Conference of Religious India, the national body of major superiors of India’s Catholic religious, in November 2021 and assumed office in January 2022. The 58-year-old educator also heads the women section of the conference as well as the Apostolic Carmel congregation.
Nirmalini advocates empowerment of women religious, mutual sharing, and leadership to tackle the oppressive patriarchal system and gender inequality within the Indian church. She is starting “grievance cells” for religious sisters.
“Yes, my first step was to set up this cell, which is operational now. The last meeting of our executive body [in early March in New Delhi] approved the cell’s rules, regulations and the operation mechanism.
The cell is headed by experts from men and women religious as well as laypeople. None of them is from the conference’s executive body so that it can function as an independent body. It will then report to the conference’s executive body for a final settlement.This cell will deal with any grievance, not just sexual harassment, from both the women and men religious. They can call the cell or message it. We are now trying to get this message to the grassroots by organizing awareness sessions at regional and local levels.”
“I think we need to look at our formation system to help our sisters grow up with independent thinking, dignity and leadership instead of forming them to be obedient sheep. Perhaps the lack of individual growth and freedom dissuades people from joining convents.
We now train sisters with professional skills to suit every area of life and service along with their spiritual and theology formation. We are grateful to the Hilton Foundation for its great support to form our sisters as agents of social change”.

Police in a northern Indian state have arrested two pastors for allegedly desecrating the Sikh holy book.Pastors Vicky Masih and Roop Lal of the Believers Church in Golewala village in Faridkot district in Sikh-majority Punjab state were arrested on April 24 for allegedly tearing out pages from the Sri Gutka Sahib, a pocket-sized book containing hymns from Sikh scriptures, and throwing them into the street. The police swung into action after villagers filed a complaint. Harjeet Singh, superintendent of police in Faridkot, told reporters that the accused were traced using CCTV cameras in the area.They were in a car and tore pages from the Sri Gutka Sahib and threw them into the street before fleeing, Singh added.They are charged with Section 295A (the deliberate and malicious intention of outraging religious feelings of any class) of the Indian Penal Code.”I am sure this is a trap”.The district court remanded them in police custody for four days. “We will be questioning the accused to ascertain the motive,” the superintendent said.

A parish in an Indian arch-diocese established to serve a strictly endogamous communi-ty has taken the unprecedented step of permitting a member to marry a Catholic from another diocese. Sacred Heart Knanaya Catholic Church, Monippally, in the Archeparchy of Kotta-yam. Shijan Kaakkara via Wi-kimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).
The pastor of St. Anne’s Knanaya Catholic Church in Kottody, Kerala State, report-edly issued a letter of permi-ssion April 15 to 31-year-old Justin John, who was engaged two days later to Vijimol Shaji, a member of the Archdiocese of Tellicherry.
John, who plans to marry in mid-May, is a member of the Archeparchy of Kottayam, a unique ecclesiastical circum-scription in southern India for members of the Knanaya ethnic group, who for almost 1,700 years have married exclusively within their community.
Knanaya men who marry Catholics outside the archepa-rchy are usually no longer regarded as members of the archeparchy and are expected to join a non-Knanaya parish.
Indian media described the granting of permission to John as a historic step that could signal the death knell for the archeparchy’s marriage rules.

The Church’s highest judicial authority has rejected an appeal to reexamine issues surrounding land deals that provoked uproar among Indian Catholics.
In a decree dated Jan. 31, the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura dismissed the appeal concerning the proposed sale of two properties and the restitution of land losses sustained by the Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly.
Ernakulam-Angamaly is the pre-eminent see of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, the second-largest of the 23 Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with Rome. The archeparchy’s head is Cardinal George Alencherry, the leader of the Syro-Malabar Church.
Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli, the apostolic nuncio to India, informed  Ernakulam-Angamaly’s apostolic administrator Archbishop Andrews Thazhath of the Apostolic Signatura’s decision in a letter dated April 3.
“As your Grace will see, the Supreme Tribunal, after carefully studying the case, has now decreed that ‘in matters already decided, let there be no reopening, and let this be informed to those concerned, with all the effect of law,’” Girelli wrote.
The decree is the latest twist in a long-running controversy over real estate transactions that lost the archeparchy in the southern Indian state of Kerala a reputed $10 million and led to proceedings in the country’s civil courts.
Critics have accused archeparchy officials of selling the land for far less than its estimated worth, and of mismanaging the Church’s assets at a time when the archeparchy was already struggling to pay back a large bank loan.
The affair sparked outrage among the archeparchy’s priests, who demanded the removal of Cardinal Alencherry in a revolt known as the ”Ernakulam priests’ rebellion.”
In June 2018, the Vatican appointed a temporary apostolic administrator who oversaw the archeparchy for a year.
In August 2019, Pope Francis confirmed the election of Archbishop Antony Kariyil as the archiepiscopal vicar of Ernakulam-Angamaly, responsible for day-to-day administration.
In March, India’s Supreme Court rejected an attempt by Alencherry to quash seven criminal cases against him relating to land deals. The ruling increased the likelihood of the cardinal facing trial over the cases.

Brother Jesu-das Gabriel Amirtham, a member of the Society of St. Paul who promo-ted peace clubs for children and ran mobile bookshops among other activities, has died.
The death occurred at 4 pm on April 10 at the congregation’s house in Kochi, Kerala, following a massive heart attack. He was 67.

An Indian will now handle the funds of the worldwide Society of Jesus, the second largest Catholic religious congregation for men after the Salesians.
Jesuit superior general Father Arturo Sosa on March 28 announced the name of Father Sebastian J Jeerakassery, a former head of the congregation’s Delhi province. He will assume office from April 1, according to the Jesuits’ global website.

The Madhya Pradesh High Court on April 13 granted bail to a Catholic school principal accused of sexual abuse of student.
A day earlier, the court granted temporary relief from arrest to Bishop Gerald Almeida of Jabalpur and Father Jagan Raj in an alleged cheating case.
The high court’s principle bench in Jabalpur granted bail to Nam Singh Yadav, a layman principal of a school the Jabalpur diocese managed at Junwani, a village in Dindori district in the central Indian state.
The court also ordered for a probe into the charges against the principal after he denied the allegations against him.

The pro-Hindu government in a central Indian state has agreed to provide police protection during Holy Week to churches in a diocese where Christians face hostility from Hindu nationalist groups.
“We will provide adequate security for churches in the Jhabua diocese during the Holy Week,” said Agam Jain, superintendent of police, the top cop in the tribal-dominated Jhabua district in Madhya Pradesh ruled by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

In a rare and significant gesture for India, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Delhi on the occasion of Easter 2023. Modi – welcomed by Archbishop Anil Joseph Thomas Couto – spoke to the faithful; he also lit a candle in front of the image of the Risen Christ and planted a tree in the garden of the complex. It was the premier himself who gave wide coverage to the visit, releasing pictures and a short video.
Earlier in the morning Modi had already posted greetings to Christians on Easter Day with a Tweet on his profile. In the text he expressed the hope that “this special occasion will deepen the spirit of harmony in our society. May it inspire people to serve society and help the marginalized. On this day let us remember the pious thoughts of Christ.” Modi’s visit was welcomed by the Archdiocese of Delhi. In a statement reported by India’s official Ani news agency, cathedral pastor Father Francis Swaminathan called it “a great message.”
Observers of Indian politics have linked the gesture to the slogan “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas,” launched by the premier ahead of the 2024 elections: a call for cooperation among the different communities in India, a country where unfortunately confessional divisions fueled by Hindu nationalists often make headlines.
In recent days Modi had had a meeting in Delhi with Baselios Marthoma Mathews III, the leader of the Malankara Orthodox Church, a Syriac rite. The prelate also extended an invitation to him to visit his seat in Kottayam in Kerala.
“We are happy with the messages about cooperation between the communities,” Baselios Mathews III had commented, “but at the same time we have problems in different regions, attacks against Christian churches. And these facts are a reality that needs to be addressed.” Kerala, too, some prominent BJP leaders visited churches on Easter Day. It was a gesture that the local opposition leade linked back to the election campaign, calling it opportunistic and recalling how – on the contrary – just these days a minister from the same party said that Christians who visit other people’s homes “to effect conversions” should be beaten.
Speaking to AsiaNews, Father Paul Thelakat, former spokesman of the Syro-Malabar Church, commented, “I welcome Prime Minister N. Modi’s visit to Delhi’s Sacred Heart Cathedral on Easter Day.”