Pope Francis has appointed Archbishop Jose Palma of Cebu as a member of the newly-established Dicastery for Culture and Education. “This symbolized the pope’s trust not only in the archbishop but in every Filipino,” Cebu Archdiocese said in a statement while announcing the appointment on Feb. 12.

Two bishops were appointed and one retired on February 4 in the Indian Catholic Church.
Pope Francis appointed Father Wilbert Marwein as the bishop of Nongstoin, a diocese in the northern Indian state of Meghalaya, and Father James Shekhar as the bishop of Buxar diocese in Bihar.
The Pope on the same day accepted the resignation Bishop Devadass Ambrose Mariadoss of Thanjavur diocese in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Archbishop Emeritus Ignatius Paul Pinto of Bangalore, a renowned liturgist who found a middle path to solve the language controversy in the archdiocese, died February 8. He was 98.

A four-century-old chapel in western India dating back to the Portuguese colonial era faces a threat of demolition as the administration aims to acquire land to turn it into a football stadium, local Catholics say.
Catholic leaders say the chapel of Our Lady Of Remedies in Daman faces threat due to a controversial beautification drive planned by Praful Patel, the administrator and a leader of the pro-Hindu Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP).
Daman and Diu is a federally ruled territory that comes directly under the administrative control of the BJP-led government in New Delhi.
Territory’s administrator Patel neither confirmed nor denied the move to demolish the chapel to expand the football field.
“No, I have no idea, you ask the local authorities,” he told.
But local Catholics said the administration was firm about the demolition plan.

Unidentified persons have set fire to a Protestant church in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
Police have launched a probe against those behind the burning of the Evangelical Lutheran church under Kesla police station in Narmadapuram district.
People came to know about the incident only on February 12 morning when they went the church for their Sunday service.
“I do not know when it happened, but we came to know it on Sunday morning,” Church pastor Mahesh Kumre told on February 13.
According to him, the vandals entered the church through the grill after breaking it open.
They burnt everything inside the six-year-old church including a copy of the Bible, prayer books, fans and chairs among others.
Since none stayed in the church the vandals had sufficient time to destroy everything in-side the church, the pastor said.

India’s top court has directed seven state governments to present details of the action taken by their law enforcement agencies in cases of alleged attacks against Christians and their institutions.
A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud on Feb. 6 ordered the state of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh to present the information within three weeks.
The order came while hearing a public interest petition (PIL) filed by Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore along with the National Solidarity Forum and the Evangelical Fellowship of India.
The Supreme Court at an earlier hearing on Sept. 1 last year had directed the federal home ministry to obtain reports from eight states to enable it to assess the claims of the Christian petitioners on the alleged violent incidents against their community members and institutions.
The eights states were to provide information on the incidents of “criminal wrongdoings” that occurred in 2021, as alleged in the petitions, verifying the registration of cases by police on receiving information about the crime, the status of investigations, the arrests made, and charges filed in court for prosecuting the culprits.
The Supreme Court said the verification exercise was needed to determine whether directions issued by it in a number of earlier judgments were being followed by the provincial authorities. The judgments made the states accountable for preventing violence and taking action against perpetrators of sectarian violence, especially the lynchings of minorities.

Three alleged black-market immigration agents have been arrested in western India in connection with the case of an Indian family who froze to death on the United States’ border with Canada last year, police said Wednesday.
Deputy Commissioner Chaitanya Mandlik with Ahmedabad Police’s crime branch named the suspects as Yogesh Patel, Bhavesh Patel, and Dashrath Chaudhary.

Rights activists in Indonesia’s restive, Christian-majority Papua province have hailed life-term imprisonment for an ex-soldier accused of killing four Papuans. The sentence is the toughest against a member of the security forces long accused of gross human rights violations in the conflict-torn region.
Catholic priest and rights campaigner Father John Djonga said the verdict “signals that there are efforts to take firm action against state apparatus who are perpetrators of crimes in Papua.”

Pope Francis has appointed Father John Panamthottathil of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate (CMI) congregation as the new bishop of St. Thomas Syro-Malabar Diocese of Melbourne, Australia.
The Holy Father has accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the eparchy of Saint Thomas the Apostle of Melbourne, Australia, presented by Bishop Bosco Puthur, who completed 75 years of age.

A 73-year-old Dominican nun and a 36-year-old diocesan priest have died in tragic accidents at two different pa-rts of India.
Father Melvin Abraham Pallithazhathu of Bijnor diocese died January 19 when his vehicle fell into a gorge of 500 feet deep at Joshimath in the Chamoli district of the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand. He had gone there with relief materials from the diocesan headquarters of Kotdwar, some 275 km southwest.
Sister Jussina Pulikkottle, OPSister Jussina Pulikkottle died January 16 when she fell on railway tracks near Bengaluru, southern India. Her funeral took place at 11 am on January 19.