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.

The Indian Catholic Women Movement, an ecumenical forum, has expressed “deep distress and anguish” at the killing of civilians in a messed-up counter-insurgency operation in Nagaland.
“The killing of innocent lives calls for a just probe into the matter, in order to identify why and how the operation went wrong. It is important to end the ambush mentality of armed forces to restore a sense of safety and security to the people of Nagaland,” says a statement from the movement issued on December 9.
The text of the statement:
We the members of ICWM express our deep distress and anger at the killing of unarmed civilians and a soldier in the messed-up counter insurgency operation by the Assam Rifles in the Mon District of Nagaland on 5 December 2021.
The Mon incident needs to be seen against the backdrop of the patiently crafted cease-fire in place and peace negotiations backed by almost all Naga groups, amidst the high tension in the region. In this situation, that calls for joint vigilance and action by political leadership, security forces and civil society, extra caution and sensitivity is needed on the part of security forces towards local communities. In this highly volatile context, the state machinery needs to act with great prudence and care towards civilians so that trust can be re-built and peace restored.

A missionary Nun, Betsy Devasia, working in Guwahati, Assam, was conferred with 11th International Human Rights Award for her contribution to women development in the region by Delhi-based Inter-national Human Rights Council on 10 December 2021 at the India Islamic Centre Auditorium, New Delhi.
Sister Betsy Devasia, born on July 1, 1947 as the second child, to Mr. Devasia and Rosamma Pulippara in Kerala’s Kottayam district, has been working in Northeast India for the last 30 years.
“I am not sure if I deserve this honour”, said the septuagenarian Holy Cross Nun. “Serving the people of Northeast India in various roles since 1988 and as Director of Women Development Centre (WDC), Guwahati, since 2008, has been the most rewarding experience of my life. That is an award in itself”.
The WDC, established in the year 2000 as a millennium gift to the women in Northeast India by Archbishop Emeritus Thomas Menamparampil, has been catering to the women from rural areas of the region with slew of initiatives to empower them to take their lives forward.
One of the major activities of WDC is educating school dropped out tribal girls to complete their schooling through National Open School. Started with five students in 2005, more than 500 tribal girls from Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, Naga-land, Tripura, Mizoram and Assam have completed their secondary education. The current batch has 65 students.
Accepting the award, Sister Devasia said, “My award is to be able to see the lives of these underprivileged children change completely. The underconfident girls who through our educational portals are never the same. They leave our campus with confidence and courage to face the world to make positive contribution to make it a better place to live in.” Many of the girls who completed their secondary education through WDC have gone on to do higher studies including Masters Degree and 20 of them currently working in various Government and private departments in the region, including a motivational speaker, nurses and a radiologist.