A group of progressive Catholic religious in India have questioned the silence of the official Catholic Church over the continued violent attacks on Christians and other mino-rity communities across the country.
They want the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) to take up the issue with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah to ensure immediate action against the perpetrators of hate crimes against minorities.
They also want regional bishops’ conferences to raise the issue of Christian persecution with respective state governments.
The Forum of Religious for Justice and Peace, in a letter dated Jan. 10 addressed to Cardinal Oswald Gracias, expressed shock over the silence of the CBCI even as targeted violence against Christians continued unabated in the country.
“During the two days, Dec. 24-25, the media reported seven well-planned attacks on Christian institutions across the country,” while “in the year 2021, there were 486 incidents of violence against the Chris-tian community in India, accor-ding to the United Christian Front,” the forum said.

Thousands of people, mostly Christians, in India’s north-eastern state of Nagaland took part in a two-day walkathon from commercial hub Dimapur to capital Kohima demanding the repeal of the draconian Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) and justice for Naga Christians killed by the Indian army last month. Protesters including civil society activists and women and children took to the streets on Jan. 10-11 and carried placards demanding the repeal of the controversial law which was enforced in Nagaland to curb secessionist groups and armed rebellion in 1956.

The top court in southern India’s Tamil Nadu state has ordered a Catholic priest to face trial for allegedly hurting the religious sentiments of Hindus and criticized Christian missionaries claiming Jesus Christ as the only true god.
The Madras High Court on Jan. 17 said that “the offending speech” of Father George Ponnaiah, a vicar of Kuzhithurai Diocese, “prima facie attracts the offenses” under various clauses of the Indian penal code.

Members of the Calcutta Salesian province has mourned the death of Father Samuel Sudorshon Mondol, a former director of Novices.
The Salesian priest died in Kolkata at 8.45 am on December 28, 2021. He was 49. Father Mondol “had been undergoing immunotherapy since two months for sicknesses related to his liver, and recently, the kidneys. Of late he was undergoing palliative care.

The ongoing diocesan synods across the globe, preparing for the 2023 Synod of Bishops in Rome, can learn a few lessons from the explosive German synodal path on subjects detrimental to the long-cherished views of the hierarchical, clericalist, magisterial and male-dominated Catholic Church. The Asian Church especially has to follow thoroughly the outcome of the German synod path, which has taken up burning issues like clerical abuse for discussion. The lack of a power-sharing mechanism within the Asian Church was brought to the fore when a lay Catholic in the southern Indian state of Kerala challenged the Eastern-rite Cardinal George Alencherry’s authority to sell some pieces of land in Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese.

A police probe has been initiated into a Catholic-run orphanage in Sagar Diocese in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh following allegations that its inmates were given beef and taught the Bible, among other charges.
Church leaders denied the charges and said they were part of a well-orchestrated malicious campaign to defame the Church, especially by those who have an eye on the orphanage’s land.
This is the third such incident targeting a Catholic-run institution in the diocese within a month. A joint team of police and district Child Welfare Committee (CWC) members visited St. Francis Orphanage in Shampura in Sagar district on Dec. 6 following a complaint that the orphanage authorities had supplied beef to the inmates and tried to teach the Bible, among other charges.
“The team interacted with students and took statements of five boys and five girls and also those of officials,” orphanage director Father Sinto Varghese told on Dec. 9.
“The following day another team of CWC members, mostly women, visited the orphanage and took statements from all the girls.” The orphanage is home to 44 children – 21 girls and 23 boys – aged up to 19.
“Local police, judges and CWC members regularly visit it and inspect its running as per the government guidelines and we do not know suddenly where the cow meat and other charges came from,” Father Varghese said.
“Where will we get cow meat?” asked the priest as cow slaughter and consumption of beef are prohibited in the state. “We provide chicken as per the government food menu and those who don’t eat meat are given vegetables and other stuff they require.”

Archbishop Sebastian Durairaj of Bhopal has urged authorities to end the continuing violence against Christians in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
“A section of our community is feeling insecure. That is why we met Home Minister Narottam Mishra, who has assured us of appropriate act-ion,” the archbishop is reported to have said in a video message released after his meeting with the minister on Dec. 7.
He also appealed for action in the recent attack on St. Joseph School in Vidisha district by a 500-strong mob of Hindutva activists alleging the school management was converting students to Christianity.
The newly appointed arch-bishop, who is based in state capital Bhopal, told that he raised the issue of increasing attacks against Christians and their institutions in the state.
“He asked me ‘Do you convert people?’ and I replied ‘No, we don’t,’” Archbishop Durairaj said about his interaction with Mishra.

Women in India on December 13 decried a “blatantly misogynistic” and regressive” question a national school board asked its tenth grade students.
“The education ministry must seriously do an enquiry, and the one made the question/statement should be punished severely,” says Sister Joel Urumpil, a social worker in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand, reacting to the news about the question set by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).
The question that appeared in the reading comprehension section held December 10 contained sentences like “women gaining independence is the main reason for a wide variety of social and family problems.”
Sister Urumpil, a member of the Sisters of Charity Nazareth, wants a nationwide out-rage by progressive men, women’s groups, students, Members Parliament of both houses, educational institutions. “Media should be urged to expose the rotten mindset and cry foul,” she told Matters India.
The issue drew national attention December 13 when Congress party’s interim president Sonia Gandhi raised the “blatantly misogynistic” and “shockingly regressive passage” in the parliament.