Pope Francis accepts artwork from children as he meets with families from Afghanistan prior to his general audience in the Paul VI hall at the Vatican Sept. 22, 2021. The Pope met
three Christian families from Afghanistan – a total of 14 people, including seven children, who fled from Afghanistan.
When Pary Gul, a Christian woman from Afghanistan, met Pope Francis Sept. 22, she gave him her wedding ring as a reminder of her husband, who has disappeared and may be dead. According to the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, Pope Francis accepted the ring, but only on the condition that Gul keep it for him “as a commitment of friendship and a sign of hope.”
Gul, 57, was among 14 Afghan Christians who met the pope just before his weekly general audience. The Italian military helped the three Christian families to flee Kabul after the Taliban takeover in mid-August. They have been resettled in northern Italy by the Meet Human Foundation.
Gul was accompanied by her four children, who are between the ages of 14 and 25. She told L’Osservatore Romano that the children saved the family by sending out an SOS on their phones. They had been hiding in a cellar for four days.
“My husband first was fired and then arrested, and we have heard nothing more from him,” she said. She believes “someone probably denounced us for being Christians.”

A Christian leader in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh has accused the state government of inaction after six incidents of Christian attacks were reported within a week. The latest attack was reported from a remote village in Kabirdham district on Aug. 29. More than 100 Hindu activists beat up a pastor after barging into his house during a prayer service, said Mohit Garg, superintendent of police for the district. The mob also manhandled Pastor Kawalsingh Paraste’s family members and vandalized the house, damaging scriptures, articles of worship and household items, before fleeing. The incident occurred in Polmi village around 11am when the Sunday prayer service was underway, Garg said.
“It is very unfortunate that we have witnessed repeated attacks on our Christian brothers and sisters last week. But it is nothing new. We have documented more than 200 such incidents in the state during the past two years,” Chhattisgarh Christian Forum president Arun Pannalal told.
He said what was more unfortunate was that every time the government would try to play down the incidents and push for a compromise between the attackers and their victims. “Few of them will be called to the police station but no first information report [documenting the initial details of the incident] will be registered,” he said.
Police inaction and the government’s failures had made the Christian faithful in the state insecure and disturbed social harmony, the Christian lay leader alleged.
Meanwhile, police said the pastor was accused of being involved in religious conversion activities by his attackers who also raised slogans against him.
Pannalal told media that members of all Christian denominations in the state had met recently in Bilaspur town where they discussed ways to defend their community leaders and places of worship against similar attacks. “We will approach the Supreme Court for justice with all the required evidence,” he said.
Chhattisgarh has in place an anti-conversion law enacted during the rule of the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Chhattisgarh Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2006, requires anybody wanting to change religion to seek permission from district authorities at least 30 days in advance.

Pope Francis has appointed Father Varghese Vinayanand Vekkal as the apostolic administrator of the Gurgaon Syro-Malankara diocese.
The appointment came August 28, two days after Bishop Jacob Barnabas Chacko Aerath of Gurgaon died of post Covid complications in a private hospital in New Delhi. The gathering at St Mary’s Cathedral, Neb Sarai, New DelhiAn official communication from Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, head of the Syro-Malankara Church, said the appointment took effect from August 28.

A parish in Kerala on September 5 witnessed unruly scenes when its priest tried to read a pastoral letter from the head of the Syro-Malabar Church during the Sunday Mass.
A section of parishioners of the Holy Family Church at Prasannapuram near Aluva rushed to the altar to prevent the priest from reading the letter from Cardinal George Alencherry.

Cardinal Oswald Gracias, head of the Catholic Church in India, on September 13 joined political and social leaders to mourn the death of Oscar Fernandes, a former federal minister. Fernandes, a member of the Congress party, died earlier in the day at Mangaluru, a port town in Karnataka state. He was hospitalized after he suffered an injury in July. He was 80. Fernandes was being treated the ICU at Yenepoya Hospital in Mangaluru after the fall during his regular morning yoga sessions.
He is survived by his wife Blossom Fernandes, son, and a daughter.

A pastor and two others were beaten up by a right-wing mob inside a police station in Raipur, capital of the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh.
The mob accused the pastor of indulging in forced religious conversions. The September 5 attack occurred after heated arguments between the mob and those who accompanied the pastor to the police station where they were called for questioning.
The incident took place at the Purani Basti police station in Raipur. The police had received complaints of forced religious conversions being carried out in the Bhatagaon area. A few local right-wing Hindutva leaders, too, reached the police station shortly after.
The complainants were furious and gheraoed the building demanding action against those carrying out such conversion. The arrival of the pastor, along with some Christians of the Bhatagaon area, sparked the exchange of words between the mob and those called in for questioning.
The pastor was then taken into the station in-charge’s room where the tense situation only worsened. Soon the pastor was subjected to physical assault, officials said. A video of the incident shows some members hitting the priest with slippers and shoes.

Pakistan’s National Commission for Minorities (NCM) has called on President Arif Alvi to approve a draft bill for empowerment of the commission formed by the federal cabinet last year.
The recommendations, shared in a Sept. 7 meeting at the presidential house, include appointing only a non-Muslim as commission chairman and cover the process of appointing members and budget allocation.
“This bill should have been passed 70 years ago. We hope it is passed in our tenure. This commission was formed 20 years ago but none of our communities knew about its existence. It only existed on paper. We have already shared our concerns with the prime minister and the chief justice of Pakistan,” Jaipal Chhabria, a Hindu NCM member, told.

A prominent Catholic Bishop in Kerala claimed that young men and women, belonging to the Christian community and other non-Muslim faiths, were being lured and targeted through means such as ‘love jihad’ and ‘narcotic jihad’ in the state.
Addressing the laity on the occasion of the Eight day of Lent of Mary earlier this week, Joseph Kallarangatt, Bishop of the Palai diocese of the Syro-Malabar Church, alleged that those who claim that ‘love jihad’ doesn’t exist in Kerala are “blind to reality.” “Such people, be they politicians or those from social and cultural spaces, media may have their own vested interests. But one thing is clear. We are losing our young women. It’s not just love marriages. It’s a war strategy to destroy their lives,” he claimed.
The Bishop, presiding over a diocese that has the largest concentration of Syro-Malabar Catholics in the state, alluded to former DGP Loknath Behera’s statement that Kerala was becoming a recruitment centre for terrorists and that it was home to ‘sleeper cells’ for such persons.
“In a democratic country like ours, since it’s not easy to use weapons to destroy people of other faiths, jihadis are using means which are not easily identifiable. In the view of jihadis, non-Muslims are to be destroyed. When the objective is expansion of their religion and destruction of non-Muslims, the means they use are of different forms. Two of such widely-discussed means today are love jihad and narcotics jihad,” he alleged.

Synod of the Eastern rite Syro-Malabar Church has decided to implement a uniform mode of celebrating mass in all its 35 dioceses from Nov. 28, ignoring the opposition from a section of priests and laity. All dioceses will celebrate the liturgy in a uniform way by next April 17,  Easter Sunday of 2022, said the synod in an Aug. 27 statement, issued at the end of its week-long online gathering.
The synod decision follows Pope Francis’ letter on July 6, which asked the Church to implement a standardized form of liturgy, as agreed by the synod of Bishops in 1999. The Church has been divided over the liturgical celebration for more than four decades with some priests celebrating the Mass facing the congregation, while some faced the altar against the congregation.
The synod two decades ago agreed that all its priests will face the congregation during the Mass until the Eucharistic prayer, and then again from Communion to the end of the Mass. During the Eucharistic prayer, they will face the altar against the congregation.
However, a section of priests and laity opposed it and sought papal intervention. They did not want priests to stand facing the altar, against the congregation during the Mass.
The latest papal letter asked to implement the 1999 synod decision as “an important step towards increasing stability and ecclesial communion” in the Church, based in southern Indian Kerala state.
The synod “unanimously welcomed” the papal letter and thanked “his intervention for the unity and growth” of the Church, the synod statement said.
As a first step of implementing the decision, all cathedral churches, pilgrim centres, religious houses and minor seminaries will implement the decision on Novem. 18, the beginning of the Church’s liturgical year.
Some bishops, who expressed difficulties in implementing the decision in their whole diocese, can introduce the uniform mode of celebration starting with all possible parishes on Nov. 18.
“By effective catechesis, the uniform mode shall be gradually introduced in the whole eparchy as early as possible, not later than Easter 2022,” the statement said.
However, soon after the decision was announced, a group of people under the banner of the Archdiocesan Movement for Transparency (AMT) protested in front of Mount St Thomas, the headquarters of the Church in Kerala’s Ernakulum district.

A Catholic official in India has criticized as “politically motivated” a federal commission’s recommendations to curtail the rights of schools run by religious minorities such as Christians.
The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), in a study released last week, sought to bring minority schools, most of them run by Christian institutions, under its right to education and universal elementary education policies.
The federal government makes it mandatory to include underprivileged children in schools under its Right to Education (RTE) Act and provides elementary education to all children aged 6-14 under a universal education scheme.
However, the Supreme Court of India declared the RTE Act inapplicable to schools with minority status while upholding their right to establish and administer institutions of their choice.
“This study, which targets Christians and Muslims, may be politically motivated,” Fr Maria Charles, secretary of the Indian Catholic bishops’ commission for education and culture, told.
He said minority-run institutions share the responsibility of offering good education to the poor and marginalized while reminding the government of its responsibility to provide good education to children who are deprived of it.