Catholic bishops in Kerala have cautioned people against rising occult practices in the wake of reported cases of human sacrifices in the southern Indian state.
“No civilized society can image such ghastly murders. We are shocked,” Father Jacob G Palakkappilly, the spokesperson of Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC), told Matters India on October 13, two days after the gruesome murders came to light following investigation into the missing complaint of one of the women.
According to the police, two middle aged women were sacrificed for prosperity and wealth in the past four months in Pathanamthitta district.
“Nothing but shocked. It has happened in Kerala,” said Sister Jessy Kurian, a Supreme Court lawyer, reacting to the reports of human sacrifices in a state that boasts of the highest literacy rate and a model women empowerment in India.

In Edison, New Jersey, a bulldozer, which has become a symbol of oppression of India’s Muslim minority, rolled down the street during a parade mark-ing that country’s Independence Day. At an event in Anaheim, California, a shouting match eru-pted between people celebrating the holiday and those who show-ed up to protest violence against Muslims in India.
Indian Americans from di-verse faith backgrounds have peacefully co-existed stateside for several decades. But these recent events in the U.S. — and violent confrontations between some Hindus and Muslims last month in Leicester, England — have heightened concerns that stark political and religious polariza-tion in India is seeping into dias-pora communities.
In India, Hindu nationalism has surged under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party, which rose to power in 2014 and won a landslide ele-ction in 2019. The ruling party has faced fierce criticism over rising attacks against Muslims in recent years, from the Muslim community and other religious minorities as well as some Hindus who say Modi’s silence embold-ens right-wing groups and threat-ens national unity.
Hindu nationalism has split the Indian expatriate community just as Donald Trump’s presid-ency polarized the U.S., said Varun Soni, dean of religious life at the University of Southern California. It has about 2,000 students from India, among the highest in the country.
Soni has not seen these ten-sions surface yet on campus. But he said USC received blowback for being one of more than 50 U.S. universities that co-sponsor-ed an online conference called “Dismantling Global Hindutva.”
The 2021 event aimed to spread awareness of Hindutva, Sanskrit for the essence of being Hindu, a political ideology that claims India as a predominantly Hindu nation plus some minority faiths with roots in the country such as Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism. Critics say that exclu-des other minority religious groups such as Muslims and Christians.

The Missionary Sisters of Mary Help of Christians (MS-MHC), the first indigenous con-gregation of northeastern India, has marked its 80th foundation anniversary.
“In the glorious mission history of Northeast India, one cannot deny the impact of the multifaceted missionary enter-prises launched by the MSMHC, be it in the local church or various aspects of life in the society,” said Salesian Father V C Joseph, the main celebrant of the jubilee Mass on October 22.
The priest, who is the rector and principal of Don Bosco Sch-ool Siliguri, West Bengal, stress-ed the congregation’s hall mark saying, “Quality education for the poor and downtrodden with a spirit of service and compassion uniquely characterizes the Si-sters’ educative mission with a vision to reduce social and econo-mic disparities.”
The congregation was found-ed on October 24, 1942, during the Second World War by Sale-sian Bishop Venerable Stephen Ferrando of Shillong.
Spread out in 13 regions in India and abroad, some 1,500 members of the congregation are now engaged in services ranging from faith formation, education and social work. They serve all 15 dioceses of northeastern India.
The congregation today runs 54 educational institutions, 115 parish schools, with 140 hostels both in rural and urban areas.
Today the Sisters render ser-vices to children in difficult circu-mstances, express solidarity with the domestic workers, and care for women victims of drug and alcohol abuse.

Christians in Odisha say they contribute generously to the celebration of festival of their Hindu brethren as a gesture to foster solidarity and brotherhood.
“I gladly gave 2,000 rupees, the amount decided by the Hindu Diwali committee for a Christian family,” said Lazarus Bage, a Catholic catechist, hailing from Sundargargh, now settled in Cuttack for the past 46 years.
He told Matters India on October 23, the eve of Diwali festival, that he saw an opportunity to cooperate and collaborate with the majority Hindus in their major festival of Diwali in the city of Cuttack.
The Samal Street Bidyadharpur Cuttack city committee had decided to collect 300 rupees from local inhabitants, 500 rupees from those staying in rented houses and 2,000 from outsiders settled in Cuttack for the Diwali celebrations.
Bage is among some 50 Catholic families, all settlers, under St. Antony of Padua Parish, Bidyadharpur, Nayabajar, Cuttack. Another parish in the city, Our Lady of Most Holy Rosary Cathedral Parish, has 300 Catholic families, most of them settlers. The amount for each family varies from street to street, town to town and city to city.
A Christian family living in Cuttack after the 2006 Kandhamal communal violence also donated to the Diwali committee.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or World Hindu Council has urged the Indian government to withdraw the benefits of its affirmative action program to Hindus who convert to Christianity.
Vijay Shankar Tiwari, the national VHP spokesman while addressing a press conference in Jaipur city in northwestern Rajasthan state on Oct. 19, alleged those converting to Christianity continue to use their Hindu names and credentials in official documents and draw benefits from the government’s reservation policy for Dalits and tribal people.
“The central government should make a plan and do a survey to ensure that those people who are from the SC [Scheduled Caste, the official name for Dalits] and ST [Scheduled Tribes] communities and adopted Christianity don’t get the reservation benefits,” he demanded.
Tiwari further accused Christian missionaries and Muslim clerics of acting as pressure groups to pass on the benefits of education and employment reservations in government institutions under India’s affirmative action program to those converted to their religions.
“Since these religious groups claim their religions do not have any caste system and that every individual is equal, they do not come under the reservation schemes,” said Tiwari.
He said even India’s founding fathers including its constitution maker Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar had rejected the idea of providing reservations to converts as it would destroy the purpose of uplifting socially weak Hindu communities.
“Why the step-motherly treatment to Christians and Muslims?”
“These religious groups continue to raise the demand despite it being rejected by the apex court, too,” Tiwari added while announcing the VHP will soon undertake an awareness campaign on the issue.

The decades-old liturgical dispute in India’s eastern rite Syro-Malabar Church reached the Vatican when a group of Catholics raised placards during the general audience of Pope Francis.
The close to 100 faithful including women from the Kerala-based Church on Oct. 5 tried to grab the Pope’s attention by dis-playing placards demanding to allow their priests to say Mass facing the congregation, rather than facing the altar.
At least 48 of the protesters were on a pilgrimage to the Vatican while the rest were part of the Indian community in Italy.
The dispute took a dramatic turn last week when Archbishop Andrews Thazhath, the apostolic administrator of Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese, tried to impose the liturgical pattern approved by the bishops’ synod that requires priests to face the altar against the congregation during the Eucharistic prayer until Communion.
The group carried placards with slogans in support of “La santa Messa versus Populum” (the holy Mass facing the people) to the regular papal audience on Wednesday with tens of thousands of people from across the globe present.
“We are happy that the Pope noticed our placards,” claimed Josemon Kammattil, one of the protestors, who is based in Italy.
Kammattil told that they stood at a stra-tegic spot from where Pope returns to his residence after the public audience.
“As he (Pope) moved on while accepting the salutations of the people, he stood still for a second and noticed us holding the placards in silence,” Kammattil added.
He hoped the effort may place the truth before the Pope as the apostolic administrator seems to have misguided the authorities in the Vatican.
“We plan to continue our protests against the synod Mass on Wednesdays and Sundays strictly abiding by the local law,” Kammattil said.
He said close to 8,000 Catholics from the Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese are living and working in Italy and the majority among them were against the synod-approved Mass form.

The row over wearing hijab on September 26 led clashes and disruption of classes in Providence School in Kozhikode, a town in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Some activists of the Students Islamic Organization of India stormed the girls’ school in the morning and in the clashes at the entrance three police people were wounded. The police block-ed the protesters and arrested 10 activists.
A new controversy arose in the century-old school managed by the Apostolic Carmel congregation after its management de-cided to ban hijab in the campus in line with their congregation’s policy.
The immediate provocation for the protests was the college refusing entry to an eleventh grader wearing hijab.
“Hijab is not the part of their uniforms and girls should adhere to the uniform policy,” the principal was quoted as saying by Janam Online, a news portal in Kerala. The same policy is being followed in the century-old St. Agnes School and College in Mangaluru, a major town in the neighboring state of Karnataka. Last year, several schools and colleges in an around Mangaluru was hit by the hijab controversy and the case is in the Supreme Court.
The Students Islamic Organization of India targeted the Providence School three days after Kerala observed a shut in protest against raids by the Enforcement Directorate on the Popular Front on India, another Islamic political movement.

The political secretary of the Sikkim Chief Minister on Sept. 30 denied allegations that he was using his position to spread Christianity in the northeastern Indian Himalayan state.
“Today, I am shocked and pained to learn about the wild, unfounded and dubious allegations leveled against me by a former minister and present Dentam MLA N.K. Subba about my faith,” Jacob Khaling Rai, a Protestant Christian who serves as the political secretary of Prem Singh Tamang, says in a statement issu-ed September 30.
A day earlier, ANI news age-ncy reported from New Delhi that Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP, World Hindu Council) working president Alok Kumar had written to federal Home Minister Amit Shah alleging that Rai indulged in “conversions.”
Kumar alleged that Rai was using his post to “spread Christianity and conversion to Christianity” in Sikkim.
He also said that Subba had met him and handed over a compilation of news of public appearances of Rai, “all for the promotion of Christianity and Christian Institutions in Sikkim.”
The VHP leader, a lawyer, also said that he believed that the assignment of a chief minister’s political secretary and the responsibility of a pastor engaged in promoting Christianity are different. “They should not be allow-ed to be mixed,” Kumar asserted in his letter.

The Latin rite archdiocese of Trivandrum says it will continue its agitation against the Vizhinjam seaport, despite a High Court order to remove tents used by the protesters.
“It is only an interim order and the Church would file a petition to review it,” Father Eugine Pereira,, the vicar general of the archdiocese told on October 8.
“We have some 500 women currently protesting under the tents,” Father Pereira added.
The previous day, the high court directed the state government to demolish the protest tents pitched outside the under-construction Vizhinjam port that blocked the entrance of the project.
The high court, that heard a contempt petition filed by Adani Group, said the ongoing work of the seaport should not be disrupted at any cost and com-plaints regarding the project can be raised at appropriate forums.
Father Pereira said the Adani group could use a parallel road to resume the port work.
The government has appointed one more commission to study the demands of the fisher people and the environmental impacts, and “we will wait until the report is submitted,” the priest added.
The fisher people have demanded a rehabilitation package for those who have lost houses and occupation because of the port, subsidized kerosene, and a study about the environmental impact of the project.
The port is being built by Gautam Adani, an Indian businessman who already owns 13 seaports and airports in the country. The new seaport is coming up at Vizhinjam, south of Thiruvananthapuram, under an agreement with the Kerala government and the patronage of the federal government.