Fisherfolk’s protest against an under construction international seaport in Kerala has been called off after nearly five months, paving the way for re-starting the stalled construction work.
Announcing the end of the stir on December 6, Father Eu-gene Pereira, the convener of the protest, said they decided to end agitation not because they were satisfied with the steps taken by the government but because it had reached a certain poin.
The priest of the Trivandrum Latin archdiocese also maintained that it was a temporary truce indicating that if the government failed to fulfil the promises they might consider restarting the protest.
The construction work of the 75 billion rupee Adani Vizhinjam International Seaport came to a halt after the fisherpeople, mostly Catholics, launched an indefinite protest on July 20 under the leadership of bishops and priests of archdiocese with a seven point charter of demands. The protesters said after the port construction started in 2015 close to 500 fishermen lost they houses to seawater and we-re forced to live in unhygienic warehouses and other places.

A group of some ten women stood away from everyone else in a corner of the church as Sunday Mass progressed in San Lorenzo parish, in the hilly tourist district of Loakan in the Philippines.
The women belonged to the Igorot tribe in Mountain Province, a landlocked province in the Cordillera Administrative Region. They looked reluctant to speak with other members of the congregation even after the Mass was over as they were not comfortable conversing in English or in the popular Tagalog language.
They said they would live to participate in things a bit more but have been left with the sense that they do not really fit in.
“We tried to join several parish activities before but we were never voted or even nominated as members of the parish pastoral council. I think those seats were reserved for those who are rich and be of more use to the church in a material sense,” said Manang Trining, who spoke for the group.
The isolation that the Inibaloy people feel in parishes is reflective of their social exclusion within the Church itself and wider society, their leaders say.

The bounden duty of the media to become prophetic communicators was stressed at a national convention of journalists in Chennai, southern India.
“As the members of the Fourth Estate and proud citizens of India, we cannot afford to turn a blind eye to the unsavoury developments in the social, economic, political, technological and religious spheres,” asserted the 27th convention of Christian Journalists, hosted by the Indian Catholic Press Association (ICPA).
The convention was held during the association’s December 8-11 annual general body meeting.

The Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco of Guwahati province has launched the centenary celebration of their arrival in northeastern India with a shrine dedicated to St. Mary Domnica Mazzarello, their co-founder at St. Mary’s Convent in Guwahati, Assam.
Leading the December 8 function, Archbishop John Moolachira of Guwahati said, “I join with you to thank God for his blessings upon you and I congratulate you for your presence and for the 100 years of selfless service to North East India in so many ways.”
Six pioneers from Italy led by Sister Innocenza Vallino, arrived in Guwahati on December 8, 1923, and began their educational mission in a dilapidated cottage in the premises of Don Bosco, Pan Bazar, Guwahati.

An Indian court has granted anticipatory bail to Bishop Thomas Dabre of Pune, averting his likely arrest as a co-accused in a case of alleged clergy sexual abuse.
Bishop Dabre was named by Pune city police in the western Indian state of Maharashtra in a case under pro-visions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. The case involves Father Vincent Pereira of Pune diocese, who was accused of abusing a 15-year-old schoolboy.

Police in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh have initiated a preli-minary probe into a woman’s allegation that she was paid to convert Christianity.
The move came on an order from the National Commission for Women (NCW), a federal statutory body empowered to protect the rights of women in India.
The NCW order came after a video footage of the woman went viral on Nov. 18 in which she accused a couple Christian men of offering her money to convert.
The woman, believed to be a resident of Damoh district in Madhya Pradesh, said she became Christian after 120,000 rupees was paid to her. She took the money as she was in need of it. The men, according to her dipped her in a water tank and told her that she had become a Christian. But their relationship strained after she stopped going to church. The men, she added, demanded the money back four times. She claimed to have returned 90,000 rupees and promised to pay the rest but they were not ready to listen.
The woman whose identity is not revealed also said in the video footage that at least five others were also converted to Christianity in the same spot, but failed to mention when that had happened.
NCW chairperson Rekha Sharma took cognizance of the video footage and demanded action against the culprits.
Sharma in her official tweet said her commission has taken cognizance of the video footage. The commission, she added, had “written to director general of police, the top police official, Madhya Pradesh to immediately file the First Information Report (FIR) and arrest all the accused if the allegations are found to be true. “NCW has also written to the district collector, top government official Damoh, seeking strict action She also wrote the alleged conversion is “not acceptable at all.”

Thousands of devotees from east-ern Indian state have flocked to the cathedral church of Berhampur diocese in Odisha to celebrate a Marian feast after two years. The Queen of the Mission feast was suspended because of the Covid-19 restrictions. The feast concluded on Nov. 27 after a nine-day novena.

Salesian Father Joseph Chittattukalam died of heart attack November 27 at New Delhi air-port. He was 82.

The canonization process of Venerable Agnelo D’Souza has entered a new phase after the Congregation for the Causes of Saints began to study a miracle attributed to the saintly priest from Goa.

Indian police are deporting three Swedish citizens who violated their visas by trying to convert people to Christianity in India’s remote northeast region, officials said Thursday.