Fifty years of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC) and its sterling contri-bution deserved to be celebrated. The event held in Bangkok over a span of 18 days last October was graced by a large number of Church leaders, representatives of the people of God, and a host of experts.
This momentous occasion provided an opportunity to envi-sion the future of FABC’s service and renew its commitment to its mission in these critical times. Like the previous ones, the assembly in Bangkok exuded an atmosphere of friendship, bon-homie, and pastoral and cultural exchange. The much-awaited final document was officially released on March 15.
Reading through it, I found it challenging to identify a clear vision that holds together the enti-re document, lending it strength and consistency. The absence of a unified vision is palpable in the whole document. There is an attempt to give some semblance of cohesion by resorting to the biblical narrative of the visit of the three Magi and referencing various moments of their journey. While analogies and metaphors can be helpful to a certain extent, relying solely on them may risk appearing superficial and merely attempting to fill gaps in the document.
One would expect that there would be an effort to recall and reassess the significant steps FABC had taken in the past, its vision, orientation, and build upon the achievements already made.

A Catholic priest in India has quit pastoral ministry saying he wants to clean up his Eastern rite Syro-Malabar Church, which he alleged deviated from the teachings of Christ.
Father Ajimon Puthiyapramabil of Thamarassery diocese in southern Kerala state announced his decision on May 13 to pursue what he calls the “prophetic mission” of Christ.
“…But from today I am entering the prophetic mission, one of the missions of the Christian priesthood,” the 46-year-old priest said in a letter to the parishioners of Sacred Heart Church in Mukkom where he last served.
The Syro-Malabar Church based in Kerala witnessed a series of scandals in the past four years including court cases and street protests involving priests and bishops. Allegations of lack of financial transparency and a protracted liturgical dispute were top among them.
“I took this decision after two years of discernment,” Father Puthiyapramabil told UCA News on May 19.
“I know I cannot speak up my mind being in a parish ministry, therefore, I decided to quit. It does not mean that I quit my priesthood,” he added.
Father Joice Vayalil, vicar-general of the diocese, however, said the diocese was not aware of the priest’s decision.

Gadyamma, who has been living as a devadasi since childhood, does not want her daughter to follow the oppressive tradition of being a female dancer in Hindu temples.
“I became a devadasi when I was 12 under our village tradition, but I want my daughter to study and lead a dignified life,” Gadyamma (who asked not to use her last name) told Global Sisters Report, while tightly holding her 14-year-old daughter, Dadyamma.
Devadasis are part of a religiously sanctioned ancient system in southern India, where girls are offered as “slaves of god or goddess” — the literal translation of devadasis — just before they reach puberty. As a devadasi, they serve the temple in religious rituals, music, dance, and religious service.
Over the years, this custom became a forced dedication to a life of prostitution and dance, especially to entertain the temple priests and the high caste elites. While temple services are unpaid, girls depend on paid sex work for their living.
The state banned the tradition under the Karnataka Devadasis (Prohibition of Dedication) Act in 1982, though today it continues as a clandestine practice outside temples. (The devadasi system also once prevailed in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra, where it’s now abolished.)

A top court in western India has lifted prohibition imposed on a Christian couple to preach their religion upholding the constitutional right of a citizen to practice and profess one’s religion.
The May 19 order of the Goa bench of Bombay High Court came at a time when Christians face increased hostilities from mostly right wing groups in states ruled by Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party who accuse them of indulging in religious conversions.
Referred to articles in the Constitution that guarantee religious freedom, the court asserted, “The article guarantees to all persons, the equal entitlement of freedom of conscience and the right to profess, practice and propagate religion.”
“The right conferred upon a citizen to profess and propagate religion correspondingly casts a duty on the state and the executive to ensure that every person should be allowed to freely practice, preach or profess his/her belief,” the court added.
“The State has a duty to extend all possible protection to its citizens, through free speech and the freedom of expression, enshrined in Article 19(1) of the Constitution of India to indulge in public discourse and to propagate religious practice. All persons have a fundamental right to form institution, purchase property for their use and to profess and propagate religion,” the court ruled.
The high court order came in response to a petition filed by Joan Mascarenhas E D’Souza, a resident of Goa, challenging what she described as discriminatory prohibition imposed on her preaching ministry in her private property in December 2022.
The petitioner along with her husband Dominic D’Souza had been involved in a preach ministry over 23 years until the district administration imposed curbs alleging it was an attempt at religious conversion.
The division bench of Justice Valmiki SA Menezes and Justice M S Sonak that studied the records conclude that the police had failed to prove the allegations against the couple with reliable documents and held that prohibiting them from preaching their religion infringed upon their fundamental rights.
The prohibitory order infringed up on the woman’s “constitutional right freedom of religion, freedom of conscience and to freely profess, practice and propagate her religion,” the court said.
“It further infringed upon her fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India by curtailing her right to express herself within the institutional building,” it added.

Seventy-five years after Mother Teresa launched her full-time service to the poor in a shelter in the distressed Entally neighborhood of Kolkata, the order she founded, the Missionaries of Charity, has announced that it finally secured ownership of the property.
Although the young Mother Teresa arrived in Kolkata as a Sisters of Loreto missionary in 1928, it was twenty years later when she dedicated herself full-time to the service of the poor and abandoned living in slums around the order’s house in Entally, using a building she came to call the “home of the pure heart,” or Nirmal Hriday.
Although her followers in the Missionaries of Charity have cared for the facility ever since, due to issues related to zoning and occupancy they were only able to secure legal ownership of the property recently. The legal tangles were resolved, according to media reports, on the initiative of a local member of India’s parliament.
“It is a beautiful gesture by the state government to facilitate handing over this place to us,” said Mother Teresa’s successor as superior of the Missionaries of Charity, Sister Mary Joseph Michael.

Order has been restored in Manipur following a large-scale intervention by India’s military; however, the wounds caused by the recent clashes between the mainly Hindu Meiteis ethnic majority and the mostly Christian tribal communities are deep, this according to Msgr Thomas Menamparampil, Archbishop Emeritus of Guwahati, a leading Catholic figure in north-eastern India.
In the state capital, Imphal, it is time to assess the damage wrought by the violence, including the many Catholic churches and convents devastated, not to mention the displacement of thousands of people forced to flee their homes.
For its part, the Supreme Court of India heard a petition today calling for the creation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to find out what happened.
“Our immediate target is protection, rescue and rehabilitation of people,” the top court said, asking both the Union and state governments to give details of relief camps. The displaced “must be brought back to their homes. Religious places must also be protected,” it demanded.
With 54 killed and 13,000 rescued from conflict situations, Manipur moves on to greater security after several days of intense anxiety.

A Catholic archbishop and two groups have urged the Supreme Court of India to appoint an agency to monitor attacks against Christians in the country.
The request came from Arch-bishop Peter Macho of Bangalore, the National Solidarity Forum and the Evangelical Fellow-ship of India, who had earlier filed a petition in the apex court alleging widespread attacks against Christians in the country, reports livelaw.in.
The three also pointed out a counter report from the government has disclosed that political groups linked to it were involved in the communal crimes. Hence, the government cannot be relied upon or trusted with monitoring or reporting to the apex court, they said.
The three want the agency to effectively supervise the criminal investigations taking place in “troubled spots” in India.
The request was made in the petitioners’ rejoinder to the federal government’s counter affidavit that refuted petitioners.
The government has denied any persecution has taken place against Christians in India and alleged that the petition has relied on baseless and unverified re-ports. The petitioners, the government added, have presented certain personal disputes as communal crimes.
The petitioners disputed the government and stated that the state machinery has failed in taking immediate and necessary stringent actions against groups that caused widespread violence such as attacks at Christian places of worship and disruption of prayer meetings. The groups also indulged in hate speeches against Christians, they alleged.
The petitioners also expressed lack of confidence with the government and requested for a retired Supreme Court judge to head the monitoring agency with a mandate to appoint distinguished police officers who can effectively supervise the investigation of the cases.

About fifty-five parti-cipants representing the Christian and Hindu religious traditions in Europe gathered in Rome for a meeting on the theme “Hindus and Christians in Europe: Building together a ‘fraternity-based new humanism’”. The meeting, which was the first of its kind, took place yesterday and was organised by the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue in collaboration with the Hindu Forum of Europe, the Italian Hindu Union and the World Council of Churches. Participants reflected on the changing dynamics of the Hindu-Christian relationship in Europe and envisaged ways of enhancing cooperation on issues that would foster human flourishing through interreligious dialogue, solidarity and hospitality. It was acknowledged that the Hindu concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the whole world is one family) and Pope Francis’s Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti serve as compasses to guide Hindus and Christians towards a ‘new humanism’ in an increasingly intercultural and interreligious Europe. Participants also had the opportunity today to take part in the General Audience of the Holy Father.

Pope Francis has appointed an Indian prelate serving Ethiopia in East Africa as the new bishop of Balasore diocese in the eastern Indian state of Odisha.
The Vatican on May 10 announced the appointment of Monsignor Varghese Thottamkara, a member of the Congregation of the Missions. The 64-year-old prelate is currently serving as the vicar apostolic of Nekemte in Ethiopia.
The diocese of Balasore was lying vacant after Bishop Simon Kaipuram died of a massive heart attack on April 22, 2019. Father Isaac Puthenangady is the current administrator of the diocese.
“Getting a new bishop is good news for the diocese of Balasore,” says Father Jadu Marandi, former vicar general of Balasore. He told Matters India that they diocese has been waiting for a shepherd for the past four years.
Bishop Thottamkara was born on May 23, 1960, at Thottuva under the Ernakulam-Angamaly Syro Malabar Archdiocese in the southern Indian state of Kerala. After matriculation at G V H School, Koovapady, he joined the Congregation of the Mission’s minor seminary in Gopalpur in July 1976.
He was ordained a priest on January 6, 1987, at his home parish, St. Joseph’s Church, Thottuva, by Cardinal Antony Padiyara. He began his priestly ministry as the assistant pastor of Muniguda, a town in Odisha’s Rayagada district.
He holds a licentiate in moral theology. He was the assistant pastor and hostel warden of Christnagar (Allada) during 1988-1990. In 1990, he was sent to Ethiopia to teach in the minor seminary at Ambo managed by the Vincentians of Ethiopia. In 1992 he served as a visiting professor at the major seminary at Addis Ababa.
The following year, he was transferred to Addis Ababa as the first rector of St. Paul’s Major Seminary of the Apostolic Vicariate of Nekemte.
He also served as the judicial vicar of the vicariates of Southern Ethiopia. In 1997 was appointed rector of the Vincentian Major Seminary at Addis Ababa. In 2003, he was elected assistant provincial of the Southern Indian province and in 2004 he was appointed rector and superior of St. Vincent’s Mission House, Aluva, Kerala.
The Vincentian superior general appointed him procurator general both his congregation as well as the Daughters of Charity. He was also the archivist at the general curia in 2005.

A Catholic nun has approached the Gujarat High Court for action against alleged derogatory remarks on nuns and the Pope during an event organized by a rightwing Hindu group.
Sister Manjula Tuscano, a member of the Missionary Dominican Sisters of the Rosary, on April 17 confirmed to Matters India that she had filed the petition in the Gujarat High Court four days earlier.
She, however, declined to divulge the details of the petition saying, “It is now before the court and therefore, I would not like to comment on it.” A video circulated on social media platforms shows an unidentified speaker at a function organized by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad in Kadi, a town some 45 km northwest of Ahmedabad, exhorting people to take Christians to task and to banish them from Gujarat, a western Indian state.
Sister Tuscano’s petition seeking registration of the first information report against the speaker is likely to come up next week.
The nun from Vadodara, a major city in the state, has stated in the petition signed by more than 100 that the police authorities of Mehsana district have ignored their March 28 plea for criminal action against the speaker.