A feature film on Blessed Rani Maria Vattalil was premiered May 27 on Atmadarshan TV, a popular religious channel of the diocese of Indore, central India. Bishop Chacko Thottumarickal of Indore, who addressed the function in Indore, recalled Blessed Rani Maria’s struggle to organize poor tribals against the exploitation of moneylenders. She was among the first in Madhya Pradesh to successfully implement the concept of Self Help Groups, the Divine Word prelate added.

Thomas Scaria, a renowned expert in addiction management, training and consultancy, has become the first Indian to receive “International Awa-rd for Excellence in Training Provision.”
Scaria, who heads the Mangaluru-based Ecolink Institu-te of Well-being, received the award May 14 at a function in Abu Dhabi.
The award is instituted by the International Society for Substance Use Professionals (ISSUP) based in the United Kingdom and constituted by international organizations such as Colombo Plan, World Health Organization, the US Department of State and UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime).
The award was handed over at the closing ceremony of ISSUP’s three-day annual conference attended by more than 1,000 delegates from 100 countries. Announcing the award and presenting the felicitation, ISSUP deputy director Livia Eddegger said the Indian institute was selected by the award committee for its excellence in training maximum number of addiction professionals from around the globe and creating several credentialed professionals during the year.
“Ecolink Institute headed by Dr. Thomas Scaria has trained and professionalized the highest number of addiction professionals in an excellent way,” Eddegger said.
Four other persons from various parts of the world were also awarded for their services to Drug Demand Reduction services under various heads.

Father Subhash Anand, a renowned philosophy professor who challenged Catholics in India to become Christ’s authentic disciples, died of a massive heart attack May 23 in Udaipur, Rajasthan. He was 78.
Bishop Devprasad Ganawa of Udaipur has informed that the funeral begins at 10 am on May 24.
Father Anand, a priest of the diocese of Udaipur, was born Benedict Alvarez on Nov. 15, 1943. He was ordained a priest on Oct. 28, 1967.
He was a resident of St Paul’s School in Udaipur’s Bhupalpura area.
Father Anand was part of Pune’s Jnana Deepa Vidyapeeth (JDV) semi-nary as a student and professor of Indian Philosophy and Religion for more than 30 years.
Father Subhash Anand “deeply loved the Church and his path took unusual twists and turns. He wouldn’t tolerate hypocrisy, be it among scholars or the Church’s officials,” says Jesuit Father Stanislaus Alla, a theology professor in Delhi’s Vidyajyoti College of Theology.
According to him, Father Anand “loved to go to the root of the Gospel that invites and challenges the faithful to be authentic disciples rather than get struck in the infantilizing traditionalism.”

A Sri Lankan court has ordered a travel ban on a Catholic priest for being part of the “GotaGoGama” protests demanding President Gotabaya Rajpaksha’s resignation over the nation’s worsening economic situation.
Officials from the Criminal Investigation Department in-formed Father Amila Jeewantha Pieris about the travel ban on May 23.
The activist priest has been involved with the month-long protests in the open space opposite the presidential secretariat in Colombo.
“The government is sending another message that they will make the victims more vulnerable,” said Fr Pieris while asserting that the struggle can-not be stopped by such intimidation. He said the protests will end only when the president and Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe resign.
The court order was reportedly passed to allow further investigations into the com-plaint lodged by Father Pieris and others regarding attacks by pro-government supporters on peaceful protesters at the Galle Face on May 9.
“The successor president and the new prime minister should not be part of the Rajapaksa family regime. They should also not be accused of financial corruption or crime.”

One of South Korea’s most senior clergymen says he believes Catholic Church in communist North Korea is growing although Catholics live in hiding and endure persecution. Archbishop Victorinus Yoon Kong-hi, the former head of the Archdiocese of Gwangju in South Korea, has made the remarks in a recently published book on the history of the North Korean Church.

After a long pandemic pause, Pope Francis is scheduled to celebrate a Mass May 15 for the canonization of Blessed Devasahayam Pillai and 9 men and women: Five from Italy, three from France, one from India and one from the Nether-lands. Blessed Devasahayam Pillai an Indian layman and father who was born to an upper-caste Hindu family in 1712 and converted to Christianity in 1745. The Vatican said his refusal to participate in Hindu ceremonies and his preaching about “the equality of all people,” denying the Hindu caste system, led to his arrest, torture and his death in 1752
The last canonization ceremony was celebrated Oct. 13, 2019, and included St. John Henry Newman.
The “big names” – globally – in the newly recognized heavenly host are soon-to-be St. Charles de Foucauld, who lived as a hermit in North Africa, and soon-to-be St. Titus Brandsma, a Dutch Carmelite martyred at the Dachau concentration camp.
Those canonized will bring to 909 the saints Pope Francis has recognized officially during his pontificate; the figure includes the 813 “Martyrs of Otranto,” who were killed in the southern Italian city in 1480 and declared saints in 2013.
In view of the canonization ceremony, the Congregation for Saints’ Causes has published a brief biography of each of the 10 new saints and information about the miracle attributed to their intercession needed for their canonizations. While the church does not require the recognition of a miracle for the beatification of a martyr, it generally requires one for all blesseds to be declared saints. The 10, listed in the order the congregation lists them, are: Blessed César de Bus, Blessed Luigi Maria Palazzolo, Blessed Giustino Maria Russolillo, Blessed Charles de Foucauld, Bless-ed Anna Maria Rubatto, Blessed Maria Domenica Mantovani, Blessed Titus Brandsma, Blessed Marie Rivier, Blessed Carolina Santocanale.

Since its launch in all dioceses worldwide in October 2021, the synod 2021-2023 entitled ‘For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, Mission’ has evoked mixed responses ranging from excitement and optimism to indifference and cynicism.
The Synod inaugurations in the Indian dioceses of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI, Latin rite) were followed by consultations of cross-sections of people: lay faithful, youth, children, diocesan clergy, religious men and women, the elderly and infirm, seminarians, the poor and peripheral, lapsed Catholics and so on.
“The synod is an ecclesial event and its protagonist is the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit is not present, there will be no synod,” said Pope Francis during his ‘moment of reflection’ while launching the synodal consultations on October 9, 2021. Viewing how processes have unfolded in diverse dioceses, there is no doubt that the omnipresent Spirit “blows where it wills” (Jn 3:8).

Christians in Tamil Nadu have expressed surprise that the state’s high court has admitted a public interest litigation to stop forcible conversion of students in schools.
The bench of Justices R. Madhavan and S. Ananthi of the Madras High Court on May 6 admitted the petition and posted the matter to a regular bench on June 6 after the summer vacation ends.
Jesuit Father Arockiasamy Santhanam, spokesperson for the National Lawyers Forum of Religious and Priests, says the vacation court should not have entertained the petition. “One wonders what urgency is found in this petition,” he added.
Father Devasagayaraj M Zackarias, a former secretary of the Office for Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes under the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, says he was surprised the High Court admitted the petition when the incidents it has quoted are still under investigation.”
The case, Father Zackarias laments, is nothing but a way to create unnecessary disturbance in the state where schools impart quality education, especially to the poor and the marginalized.

Frank Wilczek, the Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist and author renowned for his boundary-pushing investigations into the fundamental laws of nature, was honored Wednesday with this year’s prestigious Templeton Prize, awarded to individuals whose life’s work embodies a fusion of science and spirituality.
In a statement, the John Templeton Foundation praised the 70-year-old Wilczek for transforming “our understanding of the forces that govern our universe,” while also applying “the insights of his field to the great questions of meaning and purpose pondered by generations of religious thinkers.”
Established in 1972 by the late philanthropist Sir John Templeton, the prize is one of the world’s most lucrative individual awards, currently more than $1.3 million. Past winners include Jane Goodall, Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
“It’s encouragement in a direction that I’ve really only taken up in a big way quite recently, although I’ve been building up to it for many years,” he said, “which is thinking about not just what the world is and how it came to be this way but what we should do about it.”
Over a long career, Wilczek has recorded many distinguished achievements. That includes the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics, along with David J. Gross, and H. David Politzer, for their 1973 breakthrough explaining the unusual properties of the strong force, which binds fundamental particles known as quarks into protons and neutrons.
He has also authored several books that are informed by science but delve into the spiritual and philosophical. They include “ A Beautiful Question,” in which he asks, “Does the universe embody beautiful ideas?”; “ The Lightness of Being,” an examination of what humans are made of; and “ Fundamentals,” an exploration of radical life ex-tension, the longing for immortality, the limits of science and other topics.
“In studying how the world works, we are studying how God works, and thereby learning what God is,” he writes in “Fundamentals,” released this year. “In that spirit, we can interpret the search for knowledge as a form of worship, and our discoveries as revelations.”
Growing up Catholic, he embraced the idea that there was a grand plan behind existence. But as he learned more about science, he eventually lost faith in conventional religion and, in his words, “jettisoned detailed dogmas.”

Christian activists in India on May 11 recalled “the sacrifice” of Jesuit Father Stan Swamy while welcoming the Supreme Court order to keep the country’s sedition law on abeyance. Father Stan, as he was popularly known, died July 5, 2021, in a Mumbai hospital as an undertrial prisoner.
A three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice of India N V Ramana also directed that an accused in a fresh case could seek bail and the court that deals with it would provide relief taking into account the apex court order.