The Catholic Bishops Confe-rence of India has expressed disappointment over the media spreading selective details of its officials’ closed-door meeting with Christian parliamentarians in New Delhi. “The selective dis-semination of details has created confusion and misrepresented the nature of the discussions held,” said the conference in an official statement on Dec. 13, ten days after the meeting in New Delhi. The conference president, Arch-bishop Andrew Thazhath, and other officials met with about 20 Christian parliamentarians on Dec. 3, including George Kurian, the federal minister of state for minority affairs. The Church officials included secretaries of different conference commissions. The bishops are “deeply dis-heartened by the breach of trust and the release of selective infor-mation to the media by an un-named source,” the statement said. The media widely reported, quoting unnamed sources, that the parliamentarians had asked the bishops to abandon their opposition to the Waqf (Amendment) Act. This act has allegedly become a tool for a Muslim charity to claim some 400 acres of land in Mu-nambam village in Kerala state. “These media reports are fig-ments of their imagination; there is no truth in them,” said Father Robinson Rodrigues, the confe-rence spokesperson. “We did discuss Munambam, not seeing it as an issue of a rift between Chri-stian and Muslim communities. It [the claim on the land] is a clear case of human rights viola-tion,” the priest told.

Narendra Modi created hist-ory on Dec. 23 when he became the first Indian prime minister to visit the headquarters of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) in New Delhi. The prime minister took part in the Christmas celebrations hosted by the bishops at the CBCI Centre premises. He also interacted with key leaders from the Christian community, including cardinals, bishops and prominent lay leaders of the Church. Addressing the program, Prime Minister Modi said Christ teaches love, harmony, and brotherhood and urged everyone to work towards streng-thening these values in society. He said attempts to spread vio-lence and cause disruption in society pained him. The prime minister stressed that only a hu-man-centric approach, as adopted by India, could take a 21st-century world to new heights. Citing the Christmas market attack in Ger-many and the 2019 Easter bom-bings in Sri Lanka, Modi said it is important to come together and fight such challenges. The prime minister recalled “a very satis-factory moment for me when we safely brought Fr Alexis Prem Kumar from war-torn Afghanistan a decade back.” Fr Kumar, a member of the Jesuit Refugee Services, was working in western Herat province of Afghanistan when gunmen took him into custody on June 2, 2014. It was PM Modi to announce the Jesuit’s release first through a tweet on February 22, 2015.

Christians in Madhya Pradesh state in central India have slammed an order from the state’s child rights body asking children to seek written permission from parents to participate in school events. Father Thankachan Jose, an academician based in Jabalpur diocese, said the order holds “an ulterior motive” of targeting Christian-run schools in the state that has seen a rise in hate crimes against the community in recent years. “This is an indirect way of targeting Christmas functions in our schools where children dress as Santa clause, wear Christmas caps, and join other events linked to Christmas,” Jose told . In a Dec. 12 order, the Madhya Pradesh State Commission for Protection of Child Rights directed schools across the state to obtain the parents’ prior written permission before involving students in various events or activities.
The order also states that schools should seek parents’ permission before children wear different dresses or are even shortlisted to play different characters. “The administration is trying to harass us by issuing such an order close on the heels of Christmas,” Jose told.

Christmas celebrations were disrupted by violent incidents across India. Reports of attacks on Christians have come from Manipur in northeastern India, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab in the north, and Kerala, south. The violence was allegedly carried out by rightwing Hindu groups, or Sangh Parivar organizations, such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) and Bajrang Dal (Brigade of the stout). In one incident, a Pentecostal pastor was attacked by a man named Sonu Singh in Ludhiana, Punjab, on accusations of trying to convert people. In Rajasthan’s Jodhpur and Jaisalmer cities, activists unleashed violence against teachers and students of schools celebrating Christmas. In a bizarre incident at Indore in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, an employee of Zomato food delivery company, dressed as Santa Claus, was beaten up by the activists of the Hindu Jagran Manch (Forum for Hindu Awakening). The activists also released a video threatening Zomato workers. Violent incidents were also reported from Manipur, where ethnic clashes have raged since May 3, 2023. Widespread violence was reported in various parts of the state on Christmas Day, with firing in Sinam Kom village in the eastern part of the state capital of Imphal. In Kerala, three Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists attacked Christmas celebrations at a government school in Palakkad, leading to widespread protests. The violence has reportedly tarnished the Christmas diplomacy efforts of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state. The BJP Kerala leadership has demanded an investigation into the violence, which occurred on Dec 23, the same day Prime Minister Narendra Modi celebrated Christmas with Christian leaders in Delhi. However, several bishops have criticized the Sangh Parivar’s strategy of appeasement and violence, calling it “useless.”

Bishop John Rodrigues of Poona has been elevated to coadjutor bishop of Bombay archdiocese, paving the way for him to succeed Cardinal Oswald Gracias in India’s largest diocese. Cardinal Gracias, who turns 80 on Dec 20, is likely to step down as archbishop of Bombay, a diocese with more than half a million followers in western Maharashtra state. ”Pope Francis has appointed Bishop John Rodrigus as the coadjutor bishop of the Archdiocese of Bombay,” Cardinal Gracias said in a video message on Nov. 30. “Bishop John will come to Mumbai on Jan. 25 and reside at the Archbishop’s House” to ensure a seamless succession in one of India’s oldest dioceses in the nation’s financial and commercial hub, Gracias further said. Bishop Rodrigues, 57, had served as Bombay’s auxiliary bishop for 10 years before becoming the bishop of Poona in 2023. “John has always been a brilliant person,” his elder brother, Father Luke Rodrigues, told the media. Bishop Rodrigues was born in Mumbai on Aug. 21, 1967, and taught dogmatic theology in many seminaries in the country. The son of a widow, the prelate’s two elder brothers are priests. Luke is a Jesuit priest, while Father Savio Rodrigues in the archdiocese.

The bodies of 12 indigenous Christian youths were laid to rest 25 days after they were killed in India’s sectarian strife-torn Manipur state. Many people turned up on Dec. 5 for a special prayer meeting organized at the Peace Ground at Tuibuong in Churachandpur district, a tribal Christian stronghold in the northeastern state, bordering civil war-hit Myanmar. The mourners observed a one-minute silence before the bodies with gunshot wounds were buried in the Martyrs’ Cemetery. Speakers at the meeting called them “martyrs” who laid down their lives while protecting their tribal community which is fighting with the majority Hindus in the hilly state. A total shutdown was observed in Tuibuong and thousands of people joined the funeral procession. Among the 12 youths, 10 were killed in an alleged encounter with the Central Reserve Police Force in Jiribam district on Nov. 11. Two others were allegedly killed by Meitei groups. However, the pro-Hindu government in the state has called the youths “militants.” Their burial was delayed as the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF), repre-senting Kuki-Zo tribal Christians in Manipur, insisted on their postmortem reports. The youths, aged between 19 and 35, accord-ing to the postmortem report, were shot from behind.

Catholic bishops have urged India’s lawmakers to act against a high court judge who said the country should be ruled by the wishes of the “majority” Hindus. Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav reportedly delivered the controversial remarks on Dec. 8 at an event organized by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council) at the Allahabad High Court in northern Uttar Pradesh state. Yadav endorsed the extremist agenda of the clandestine outfit Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the parent body of the VHP and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. “The law works according to the majority. Be it in the context of the family or society. Only what benefits the welfare and happiness of the majority will be accepted,” Yadav said at the function held inside the high court’s library hall. Yadav even used the controversial term kathmullah to refer to fanatic or excessively devout Muslims during his speech. A majoritarian rule is “the opposite of everything that is intended by Article 14 and the constitution of India,” the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) noted in a statement. Article 14 guarantees the equality of all persons before the law. “The comments were made during a function organized by an outfit “that was reportedly responsible for communal violence in the past,” the bishops said in the statement on Dec. 11. The judiciary is entrusted with the duty to guard the constitution and judges are sworn in to uphold the constitution, the prelates noted. Persons who do not have “faith in our constitution and its morality should have nothing to do with the judiciary, much less be a judge,” the statement further said. The government should take action against the judge under Articles 124 and 217 of the constitution, which allow parliament to impeach high court judges. If the government fails, the opposition lawmakers should step in, the prelates demanded. The CBCI asked all parlia-mentarians to rise to the occasion to take action against Yadav. Lawyers and civil rights groups have asked India’s Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna to initiate disciplinary action against Yadav and send him packing.

The legal cell of Catholic lawyer-priests and nuns has vowed to extend help to Indian minorities, including Christians, as persecution against them increases in India. “We have decided to provide legal help to the victims of atrocities and discrimination from the minority communities, especially Christians, irrespective of their denominational differences,” said Father Bondala Sleeva Raju, Telegu regional convener of the National Lawyers’ Forum of Religious and Priests (NLFRP). The regional forum is based in the southern Telugu region, covering India’s two Telugu-speaking states, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Our teams will extend the help “free of cost” as our primary objective is to protect the rights of the country’s minorities, Raju told on Dec. 9 after a three-day convention of the NLFRP concluded in Eluru in Andhra Pradesh on Dec. 8. We are concerned about Christians amid rising persecution against them over alleged charges of religious conversion, the priest attached to Vijayawada diocese in Andhra Pradesh added. Eleven states, most of them ruled by Bharatiya Janata Party governments, have enacted a draconian anti-conversion law that curbs the citizen’s right to change religion without prior approval from government officials. These laws often target Christians and Muslims, the NLFRP meeting noted.

Indian Cardinal Oswald Gracias has opposed a proposal to enact a stringent law restricting conversion in the poll-bound western Indian state of Maharashtra, saying it violates fundamental rights. In its election manifesto, the state’s ruling alliance, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), promised to enact a stringent law making religious conversions difficult if re-elected to power. Cardinal Gracias, Archbishop of Mumbai, said that state laws should not try to control a religious conversion, which is the choice of a person’s conscience. “No civil authority has the right to enter the shrine, which is the conscience of every single person, let alone decide what a conscience should say,” Cardinal Gracias said. Some 96 million voters in the state are scheduled to elect their 288 representatives to the state legislative on Nov. 20. According to the Election Commission of India, which conducts the elections, more than 4,136 candidates are in the fray. Although hundreds of independent candidates are contesting, the major fight is between the BJP-led ruling alliance and the secular alliance led by the Indian National Congress party that led the Indian independence struggle. Cardinal Gracias said all political parties should respect the secular values of the Indian constitution, which includes religious freedom. “Freedom of religion and the right to convert are fundamental human rights, protected by India’s Constitution,” and “for Christians, conversion is a personal transformation of the heart,” he said. “No government can come into my soul and tell my conscience saying, ‘you cannot change your religion. You must worship God in this way,” he said.

Bangalore City hosted the first National Catholic Media Confe-rence dedicated exclusively for Clergy and Religious at St John’s Medical College from November 23 to 24. The conference, entitled “ILLUMINAIRE: Nurturing Digital Stewardship in the Era of Artificial Intelligence,” was orga-nized by the Salesian Commu-nication departments in Rome and India, in collaboration with the Vatican Dicastery for Commu-nication and other national Church communication bodies. Among 16 experts who shared their perspectives on using social media and artificial intelligence for pastoral ministry with some 300 participants, were Member of Parliament from West Bengal Mr. Derek O’Brien who urged clergy and religious leaders to embrace digital tools while staying true to their mission and authenticity. Member of Vatican Dicastery for Communication and director of its Theological Pastoral Department Dr. Natasa Govekar encouraged participants to integrate the values of faith and communion into the digital realm, offering a vital framework for those engaged in digital ministry today. Recalling the great media apostles in the church, Daughters of St Paul Sr. Joeyanna D’Souza, a Social Media Ethics Specialist from Mumbai, emphasized the need for consecrated persons to prioritize community goals rather than personal recognition, share uplifting content that inspires and motivates others, and maintain a balanced online presence.