Category: National

Gujarat Election Commission on Nov. 25 served a notice to Archbishop Thomas Macwan of Gandhinagar asking him to explain his letter asking Catholics to pray to elect leaders who will “remain faithful to the Indian Constitution” so that the country can be “saved of nationalist forces.”

The notice, served through the District Election Officer of Gandhinagar, asked the Archbishop Macwan to explain why his appeal should not be viewed as a violation of the Model Code of Conduct.

Officials said the action was taken on a complaint received by the Election Commission of India (EC) from an organization, Legal Rights Observatory.

It sought “immediate action” against the Archbishop, as his public letter dated November 21 was an attempt to “generate fear” among voters to “divide people on the basis of caste and creed.”

Gandhinagar District Election Officer Satish Patel said that on EC’s order for inquiry, a notice was served on Archbishop Macwan on 25th November. Archbishop Macwan said, “The letter has only been sent to the Christian community to pray. We can always pray for good humans to be elected as leaders. It has not been issued with any malicious intention to harm anyone.”

Leaders of right-wing Hindu groups are reigniting the con-troversial issue of Christian missionaries converting Hindus, ahead of Pope Francis’ historic Asian visit that will see him travel to Myanmar instead of India.

They have feigned ignorance about the pontiff being blocked from a planned India visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

The “Vishwa Hindu Parishad” (VHP, Council of Hindus) and other right-wing groups such as the Bajrang Dal, a hard-line Hindu group opposed to Christian missionary work, have been demand-ing a moratorium on the church’s conversion activities. They also opposed Pope John Paul II’s visit to New Delhi in November 1999.

Pope Francis “will have to clarify how con-version of people from other religions is justified,” said Bajrang Dal activist Angad Prasad from Assam State in north-eastern India.

VHP sources told ucanews. com they would have a few questions for the Pope, in an obvious reference to the conversion issue that Hindu groups have been steadfastly opposing.

Church leadership “lost hope” for a 2017 papal visit to India when Indian Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Bombay, who will now be celebrating Mass with Pope Francis in Yangon on Nov 29, indirectly told media that until June this year New Delhi had issued no invitation to the Pope — a necessary condition for a head of state visit under international diplomatic protocol.

“We are already in June. Even if they suddenly say, ‘come’ … (it) will take several months for the dioceses to prepare the people,” the president of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences was quoted in the media as saying.

A majority of Hindus are tolerant toward other religions but politicians deliberately create problems as a distraction from other grievances, says the secretary-general of the Indian Catholic Bishops’ Conference. Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas was reacting to a leader of India’s ruling pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who rejected the concept of government secularism.

Yogi Adityanath, the 45-year old chief minister of India’s most populous State of Uttar Pradesh, said governance in India could at best be sect-neutral. “No system can be secular,” he told a function on Nov. 13.

Bishop Mascarenhas said the issue was raised to distract peoples’ attention from matters of more pressing concern.

Adityanath should work for the development of the common people and not talk about issues that do not matter to them, Bishop Mascarenhas said. The prelate noted that India has a secular constitution regardless of public comments by Adityanath.

Adityanath, clad in symbolic saffron, had compared Prime Minster Narendra Modi’s government to the rule of Hindu lord Ram. The Hindu god sym-bolizes victory of good over evil.
The bishop countered that “the real Ram” represented tolerance, peace, justice and harmony.

The Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer of 1993 batch Sibi George will be the new amba-ssador of India to the Holy See, an announcement by the Ministry of External Affairs said here. He will replace Smita Purushottam.

Mr George is also presently Ambassador of India to Switzer-land. He will have his residence in Berne and is expected to take up the assignment shortly.

A native of Kottayam in Kerala, George has also served as deputy chief of mission of Indian embassy in Saudi Arabia and Iran. He has also worked in Egypt, Qatar, Pakistan and USA. He is also a recipient of S.K. Singh Award for excellence in IFS.

The beatifica-tion of Sr Rani Maria has seen the elevation of her home parish in Kerala as a pilgri-mage centre of the Syro-Malabar Church. The St Thomas Church at Pulluvazhi near Perumbavoor has been declared a pilgrimage centre by Syro-Malabar Major Archbishop Cardinal Mar George Alencherry on Nov 20.

Sr Rani Maria was beatified in Indore earlier this month. The nun was stabbed to death 23 years ago by a goon hired by landlords peeved at her work among landless labourers in a Madhya Pradesh village. In a rare act of forgiveness, her family accepted the assassin as a member of the family.

Sunday’s ceremony started with a procession carrying the blessed nun’s relics.

Clarist Sister Rani Maria Vattalil, 41, was stabbed in front of more than 50 bus passengers on a remote jungle track in Madhya Pradesh state as she was on her way home to Kerala state.

Samandar Singh, then 22, murdered her on behalf of money lenders upset with Sister Rani Maria’s work setting up self-help groups in the Diocese of Indore. Singh has since been forgiven by the nun’s family and was released from prison.

“Whatever happened has happened. I am sad and sorry about what I did. But now I am happy that the world is recognising and honouring Sister Rani,” Singh, a Hindu, told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview from his village of Semlia.

Singh was convicted of the murder and initially was sentenced to death; the sentence was later commuted to life in prison. He said that Sister Rani Maria’s younger sister – Clarist Sister Selmy – had formally accepted him as her “brother” while he was in prison and facilitated his early release. Court officials agreed to the release in 2006 after mandatory declarations were signed by Sister Selmy, her parents and Church officials.

When Sister Selmy was preparing to return home to southern Kerala state in January 2007 to visit her ailing 82-year-old father, Paul Vattalil, Singh accompanied the nun and apologised to her parents.

“I am now eagerly waiting for the big day,” Singh told CNS.

Bishop Chacko Thottumarickal of Indore told CNS the beatification of Sister Rani Maria “will be an inspiration for those serving the needy and poor in difficult circumstances in the country.

“Sister Rani Maria challenges all to carry on their work even if there is opposition and not to get disheartened by obstacles,” added Bishop Thottumarickal.

Sister Selmy called the beatification “a miracle.”

“Sister Rani urges us all to go forward fearlessly,” said Sister Selmy, who serves in a remote village in Uttar Pradesh state.

Two recent cases have vindicated church leaders’ belief that Christians are being targeted falsely in “kidnapping for conver-sion” cases to tarnish their image and handicap their work, lawyers say. A state court in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, on Oct. 30 released seven children taken to a shelter a week earlier. Two women traveling with them, Anita Joseph and Amrit Kumar, were arrested and accused of kidnapping them.

Police said the women were arrested after a group called Dharma Jagran Manch (Vigilant Group for Hindu Religion) complained that the children, all aged under 14, were being taken to Mumbai by train for conversion to Christianity.

The two women are still in jail as their bail application was not heard by the court.

Six other Christians from Simdega in eastern Jharkhand state arrested on charges of religious conversion were granted bail October 27. They were detained a month earlier and accused of distributing money for the purpose of converting villagers.

Parents of the seven children released from the shelter said at a October 30 press conference, that all the youngsters were baptized Christians and the women were taking them to Mumbai with their permission.

The group of some 200 Hindu hardliners who went to the rail station had also attacked some of the parents who had come to see off their children. Police who detained the children and two women, sent the youngsters to a shelter without allowing their parents to go with them.

The pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has governed Madhya Pradesh state for the past 14 years.

“This is becoming a politically motivated pattern to harass Christians,” said A.C. Michael, an official of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a forum of volunteer lawyers providing legal advice to Christians.

Michael said the false accusation is “deliberately done knowing very well that such accusations will not stand up in a court of law.”

For the first time in five decades, a church bell rang on Sunday at the largest Catholic church in the main city of India’s portion of Muslim-majority Kashmir.

Members of Srinagar’s tiny Christian community assembled at the 120-year-old Holy Family Catholic Church and celebrated the installation of the new bell, weighing 105 kilograms.

The church lost its original bell 50 years ago in an arson attack.

According to church officials, the church and its belfry were damaged in the attack by protesters demonstrating against the 1967 Mideast war.

The bell was badly damaged and rendered useless in the incident, said Sydney Rath, a local Christian member of the church. He said the bell was not installed all these years because “the community didn’t have enough resources to order a new bell after its damage.” He said one of the roughly 30 Christian families living in Srinagar donated the bell.

People from other faiths, including Muslims and Hindus, also participated in the event on Sunday.