Tribal Christians in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand are delighted after the federal government awarded one of its highest civilian awards to Chutni Mahto for her campaign to end witchcraft.
Mahto was presented with the Padma Shri (noble one in blossom) by Indian President Ram Nath Kovind in the national capital New Delhi on Nov. 9.
Mahto, herself a victim of witch-hunting, has campaigned to create public awareness against the inhuman practice in her home state since 1995.
Data from the federal National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows that between 2000 and 2016 more than 2,500 people were killed in witch hunts. An average of 156 people, mostly women and children, are killed each year across India due to the practice of witchcraft.
Rights activists say the actual numbers could be much higher as many cases are not reported to police or are reported wrongly to save those involved.
Murder driven by the belief in black magic is common in Jharkhand. In 2019, the state reported 27 deaths related to allegations of witchcraft. Up to September 2020, 19 deaths had taken place over alleged witchcraft, according to police data.

Hindu activists have disrupted Sunday prayer services in two Indian states alleging forced religious conversions that were denied by Christians.
The first incident was reported on Nov. 7 from the southern state of Karnataka, where members of the Sri Ram Sene (Ram’s army) barged into a Christian prayer hall in Maratha Colony in Belgavi (formerly Belgaum) and locked in the devotees.
Police had to rush to open doors of the locked-up hall and asked those inside to go home.
Sene members alleged that Pastor Lema Cherian was con-verting poor Hindus to Chri-stianity by organizing prayer services. Pastor Cherian denied the allegation. “We have been organizing prayer services every Sunday and all are free to join,” he said.
He said that the local police were informed about the Sun-day meeting and nobody was forced to attend it. “We are free to practice any faith of our choice and it is our fundamental right. No one can infringe upon it,” the pastor added. But Assistant Commissioner of Police Ajjol Chandrappa told media that a Hindu man who attended the prayer service had filed a complaint alleging conversion. The police were verifying the facts and may register a case, he said.

Pope Francis will canonize Devasahayam Pillai, together with six others, during a canonization Mass in St Peter’s Basilica on May 15, 2022.
The announcement was made November 9 by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. It follows the Ordinary Public Consistory of May 3 this year whereby the Pope had authorized the canonizations, without however setting a date for the ceremony because of the health emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Blessed Lazarus (Devasahayam)
Blessed Lazar is the only martyr among those set to be canonized.
Blessed Lazarus, known as Devasahayam, was a Nair caste in India. Converted to Catholicism by a Jesuit priest in 1745, Devasahayam Pillai took the name Lazarus.

A Catholic priest who tried to help two nuns illegally detained in last month’s Mau incident reported from the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh is planning to approach the high court to save himself from likely arrest.
“I am planning to move the state’s top court to discharge me from the case I was not involved in any way,” Norbertine Father Bartholomis Minj said, referring to the alleged violation of the anti-conversion law in Mau for which police took several Christians into custody following a complaint by a pro-Hindu group on Oct. 10.
Sisters Gracy Monteiro and Roshni Minj of the Ursuline Franciscan congregation were at the local bus stop when they were accosted by Hindu activists and forcibly taken to the police station on suspicion they were part of a Protestant group suspected to be involved in religious conversion.
Father Minj rushed to the police station after learning about the nuns’ illegal detention. “When asked, I told the officers that I was principal of St. Joseph School and left the place after meeting the nuns,” he told on November 11.
The priest later learned that the police had registered a case against a school principal with-out naming him. To his shock, a couple of days ago an officer came to his office and interrogated him for over an hour, prompting him to file for anticipatory bail before the district court.
The nuns were released the same day after the detained Protestants told police they were not part of their group.

Jesuit Father Cedric Prakash has won this year’s “Louis Careno Award” for excellence in journalism.
The Indian Catholic Press Association, the national body of Catholic print media persons, on November 8 selected Father Prakash for the annual award in recognition of his bold writings against communalism and fundamentalism gaining ground globally.
The association will confer the award on the 70-year-old Ahmedabad-based Jesuit on Decem-ber 1 during its 26th National Convention of Christian Journalists.
Father Prakash’s “incisive, thought-provoking writings on various subjects have broken new grounds. His razor-sharp analysis of sociocultural and political issues, especially relating to communalism and fundamentalism, has led to soul-searching debates in the civil society and the secular world,” says a press release signed by the association president Ignatius Gonsalves and secretary Capuchin Father Suresh Mathew.

India has witnessed a significant rise in violence against Christians this year with 305 incidents recorded across 21 states during the past nine months. Surprisingly, official cognizance of the targeted violence was lax with only 30 complaints registered by police so far.
September had the highest number of incidents with 69, followed by 50 in August, 37 in January, 33 in July, 27 each in March, April and June, 20 in February and 15 in May. These figures were published in a fact-finding report by the Association for the Protection of Civil Rights (APCR) and United Against Hate and United Christian Forum (UCF) and released at a press conference in New Delhi on Oct. 21
Christian Prio Sadhana Lanse and her daughters Pearl and Eva from Roorkee presented horrific details of the attack they suffered.
Eva recalled how an armed mob of around 200 shouting slogans like “Jai Shri Ram” (Hail Lord Ram) and “Vande Mataram” (I bow to thee, motherland) barged in, vandalized a prayer house and manhandled the Christian faithful on Oct. 3.
“We feel unsafe there and fear for our lives,” she said, adding that police made no arrests despite naming the main attackers in their complaints with evidence of the violence and destruction they caused.
Uttar Pradesh in northern India ruled by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) topped the list with 66 incidents of attacks this year, followed by Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh (47), tribal people’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-ruled Jharkhand (30) and BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh (26).
Karnataka in the south, also ruled by the BJP, witnessed a spurt in violence against Christians with 32 incidents.

Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore has condemned the continuous harassment on the Christian Missionaries in the state and questioned the wisdom behind conducting a survey on their presence and activities in Karnataka.
The Backward Classes and Minorities Welfare Department in Karnataka has ordered the officers to conduct a survey of both official and non-official Christian missionaries in the southern Indian state, following a discussion on Christian conversions in the state on October 13.
“Why is the government interested in making survey of the religious personnel and places of worship only of Christian community?” asked the Bishop in a statement issued October 15.
Instead, “let the government take the count of education institutions and health centers run by the Christian missionaries, which will give a fare idea of the service that is rendered by the Christian community to the nation building and how many people are converted in these places and institutions,” he challenged.
“We consider this exercise as futile and unnecessary. There is no good that will come out of it,” stated the archbishop. In fact, in the background of the conversion boggy and anti-religious feelings that are being whipped up, it is dangerous to make such surveys, he added.

Apostolic Nuncio to India Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli has pulled up Tamil Nadu bishops for “a tendency” among priests to set up and manage independent trusts violating the canon law. The nuncio says the existence of such trusts in Tamil Nadu came to his attention during his recent visit to the diocese of Kottar in the southernmost tip of India.
“Even if the aim of such trusts may appear to be praiseworthy, all too often those trusts become financial and political power bases for the priests involved,” says the nuncio’s October 8 letter addressed to the Catholic bishops of Tamil Nadu.
The letter, shared widely in social media platforms, quotes various sections of the canon law to urge bishops of dioceses with such trusts to regulate them guided by the bishops’ conference.
“Priests and religious should not be directly associated with any independent or standalone trusts or societies or For/Not-for-profit companies, unless their involvement has specifically been approved by” the local bishop, the nuncio asserts.
The Vatican representative wants bishops to follow the canon law to punish the offenders according “to the gravity of their offence.”
He has recommended the Tamil Nadu bishops’ conference to formulate “clear guidelines on the subject,” if they are non-existent.
He wants every bishop to ascertain the details of the personal trusts held by any of his priests and instruct holders of existing personal trusts to close them immediately. He also wants the bishops to ensure that no new trust is opened by his priests.
The nuncio wants the diocesan trust or the diocesan social services trust to bring under its control personal trusts of priests that “are of genuine benefit to the life and mission of the diocese.”
The Vatican official urges the bishops to resolve that no trust is set up under “the sole control of a single member of the clergy.”
The nuncio concludes the letter saying his recommendations are for the well-being of the Church in Tamil Nadu. In response to the nuncio’s letter, Bishop Thomas Aquinas of Coimbatore, one of the 18 dioceses in Tamil Nadu, wrote to his priests on October 16 that he is aware of “a couple of priests” who have trusts.