Father Rodney Borneo, a popular priest of Calcutta arch-diocese, on March 9 joined the Bharatiya Janata Party that heads the federal coalition government, according to a video clip circula-ting in social media platforms.
The video shows Father Borneo coming to a stage where he is given the BJP flag and asked to chant, “Bharat Mata ki jai” (victory to mother India).
The news of a Catholic priest joining the BJP, the political arm of the Hindu nationalists, has sent shock waves among Catholics in West Bengal. The eastern Indian state is all set to elect its legislative assembly through an eight-phased poll starting March 27.
Given below is the reflection of Father Francis Sunil Rosario, a senior priest of the archdiocese of Calcutta, on Father Borneo’s decision.
A competent priest is lost to Calcutta archdiocese
Who should be blamed for the loss of a very competent and promising priest, for whom thirty pieces of silver was more preferable, than to stick to priesthood.
Rodney trained in psychology and counseling, who was a gold medalist in 2016 from Guwahati University, was unable to cope with the pressures and some of the inconveniences created for him to function as the principal of Loyola School, Kidderpore. This is certainly not an isolated case in the ministerial priesthood. There could be others who try hard to survive despite many hardships, inaction and such administrative ‘silence’ and pressures. It could be taken as a case study to understand the issue at a deeper level and thus helping the younger clergy through supervision, counseling and guidance.

Madhya Pradesh High Court in central India has granted bail to five of nine Christians arrest-ed a month ago on charges of violating a law that criminalizes religious conversions.
The court on Feb. 4 granted bail after state police failed to substantiate the charges filed against the five.
“The other four in jail are also expected to get bail this week as they have moved the High Court against a trial court that denied them bail,” said Pastor Patras Savil, who is helping those arrested to secure their legal rights.
Police in Indore city on Jan. 26 charged 11 Christians with violating Madhya Pradesh’s stringent anti-conversion law following complaints from right-wing Hindu activists. They could arrest only nine as two were reported to have absconded.
The Hindu activists forced their way into a Protestant prayer service inside Satprakashan Sanchar Kendra, a Catholic media center owned and managed by the Society of Divine Word.
When police arrived, the Hindu activists complained that the Christians were involved in mass religious conversion in violation of the law implemented in January that criminalizes religious conversion through allurement, force, coercion and marriage.
“We are very happy that five got bail. They were falsely implicated in the case and put behind bars for more than a month,” Father Babu Joseph, director of the media center, told.

The Election Commission of India has turned down a request to change the election date in West Bengal and Assam from Maundy Thursday. The All India Catholic Union (AICU), the largest laity movement in Asia, submitted a petition asking the commission to reconsider holding polls on April 1, the day before Good Friday, in the eastern and northeastern states. Chandra Bhushan Kumar, deputy election commissioner, rejected the petition on March 1.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has reiterated that Dalit people who converted to Christianity or Islam will not be allowed to contest elections, shattering the hopes of this socially poor group once again.
Church leaders say the adamant stance of the government run by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will only add to the social and economic backwardness of Dalit people, the former untouchables.
“It is unfortunate that the government has reiterated this position,” Bishop Sarat Chandra Nayak, chairman of the Indian bishops’ Office for Scheduled Caste and Backward Classes, told.
Of the 543 seats in India’s parliament, 84 are reserved for 200 million Dalit people, officially known as scheduled castes, and 47 are reserved for 104 million scheduled tribes.
Election rules allow only Dalit or tribal people to contest seats reserved for them. A 1950 constitutional order denied social and political benefits meant for Dalit people to non-Hindus.
The order was later amended twice to include Buddhists and Sikhs in the benefits, but Christians and Muslims are denied these benefits on grounds that their religions do not follow the caste system.
Dalit Christian leaders were expecting a positive response from the government to their complaint pending in the Supreme Court since 2004. Federal Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told parliament on Feb. 11 that Dalit converts to Islam and Christianity cannot claim reservation benefits to contest parliamentary or state elections in seats reserved for scheduled castes.
Bishop Nayak told on Feb. 16 that Christian leaders have been fighting the 1950 order since it was enacted but successive governments ignored the demand because Christians are politically insignificant as they form only 2.3 percent of the nation’s 1.3 billion people.
Dalit Christian leaders claim 80 percent of about 30 million Indian Christians are of Dalit origin, but official government estimates say 33 percent of Indian Christians are socially poor Dalits, with disadvantaged tribal Christians forming another 33 percent.

Police in India’s Madhya Pradesh state have charged a Catholic nun with violating the state’s stringent anti-conversion law after she was accused of trying to allure a Hindu teacher to Christianity.
Police registered charges against Sisters of Destitute Sister Bhagya, principal of Sacred Heart Convent High School in Khajuraho of Chhatarpur dist-rict, on Feb. 22, according to local church officials. “It is absolutely a false charge,” said Fr Paul Varghese, public relations officer of Satna Diocese, which covers the area of the nun’s school.
He said the case was the latest in a series of such cases filed against Christians after the state’s pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government implemented a new anti-conversion law in January.
The case against the nun is based on the complaint of Ruby Singh, a Hindu woman who joined the school as a teacher in 2016. The school management terminated her services last year during the Covid-19 lockdown after complaints about her teaching from parents and students.
Singh complained to police that she was terminated because she refused the nun’s pressure to abandon her Hindu faith and become a Christian.
The 45-year-old woman’s complaint accused the nun of violating the law enacted in January. It criminalizes any force, allurement or fraudulent means to change a person’s religion for another religion.
“Sister Bhagya is innocent and she is falsely accused by [someone] taking advantage of the loopholes in the new anti-conversion law,” Father Vargh-ese told on Feb. 24.

The Kerala High Court has dismissed the plea of Robin Vadakkumchery, a former Ca-tholic priest convicted of raping a minor, to grant him bail so that he could “marry the survivor.”
The court said it could find no merit the petition.
Dismissing the plea, Justice Sunil Thomas stated that granting the plea would be like giving judicial approval for the marriage.
A POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act) court convicted Robin and sentenced him to 20 years in prison for raping and impregnating the minor girl.
The High Court also said it cannot allow a compromise or take a lenient view in matters related to sexual offences. The court reportedly cited the trial court’s finding that the survivor was a minor during the time of the assault, stating that it still remains and that granting bail to Robin and allowing them to get married would be like giving it legal sanctity.
In 2016, the survivor, a 16-year-old girl was studying in the eleventh grade in a church-backed school in Kannur district where Robin was the manager. He sexually assaulted her, who gave birth to a child in February 2017. Initially, the accused and the church had immensely pressurized the family of the survivor and had even forced her father to confess that he was the one who raped and impregnated his daughter. But later, the survivor’s family alleged that were pressurized and threatened by the Church.

Amid protests by the Opposition, the Uttar Pradesh Legisla-tive Assembly on February 24 passed by voice vote a Bill aimed at curbing religious conversions by fraudulent or any other undue means, including through marriage.
The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Bill, 2021 seeks to replace the ordinance promulgated in November 2020 that provides for imprisonment up to 10 years and a maximum fine of 50,000 rupees for violators.
The Bill was passed in the House even as Aradhana Misra, the Congress Legislative Party leader, and Lalji Verma, the leader of BSP in the Assembly, protested.
Under the Bill, a marriage will be declared “null and void” if the conversion is solely for that purpose, and those wishing to change their religion after marriage need to apply to the district magistrate.
The Bill mainly envisages that no person shall convert, either directly or indirectly from one religion to another by use or practice of misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by any fraudulent means or by marriage nor shall any person abet, convince or conspire such conversion.
The onus to prove that the conversion has not been done forcibly will lie on the person accused of the act and the convert, it said.
An aggrieved person, his/her parents, brother, sister, or any other person who is related to him/her by blood, marriage or adoption may lodge an FIR about such conversion, according to the Bill.
BJP leaders had said the legislation intends to counter alleged attempts to convert Hindu women to Islam in the guise of marriage, which right-wing Hindu activists refer to as ‘love jihad’.

The Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council has asked the state government to withdraw all steps it had taken on deep sea fishing off the coast. The act of the Kerala government to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with a foreign firm without consulting the fishermen community or heeding the coastal people’s concerns is objectionable, says a statement the bishops’ council issued on February 23.
The bishops, however, welcomed the government move to retract the agreement that brought great relief to the coastal community.
Although the government has withdrawn the agreement amid public protests, all the steps it had taken since 2018 to implement the project remain in force, the bishops point out.
Bishops’spokesperson Father Jacob G Palackapilly, who signed the press release, says fishermen community fears that the company would implement the project in some other way.

Pope Francis prayed Feb 7 for justice and national stability in Burma as tens of thousands protest the Feb. 1 military coup.
“These days I am following with great concern the developments of the situation that has arisen in Myanmar,” the pope said Feb. 7, using the country’s official name. Burma is “a country that, since the time of my apostolic visit in 2017, I carry in my heart with much affection.”
Francis held a moment of silent prayer for Burma during his Sunday Angelus address. He expressed “my spiritual closeness, my prayers, and my solidarity” with the people of that country.
For seven weeks the Angelus was held via livestream only from inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace due to pandemic restrictions. But Sunday the pope returned to leading the traditional Marian prayer from a window overlooking St Peter’s Square.
“I pray that those who have responsibility in the country will place themselves with sincere willingness at the service of the common good, promoting social justice and national stability, for a harmonious coexistence,” Pope Francis said.
Tens of thousands of people in Burma have taken to the streets this week to protest for the rel-ease of Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s elected civilian leader.

A village court in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand has ordered families who converted to Christianity to be caned, fined and excommunicated from the community.
Three Korwa tribal families from Khala village of Dhurki in Garhwa district embraced Christianity on Jan. 22, according to media reports.
“There are reports of religious conversion in the area but they are of different denominations as a few small sects are active there. It is a matter of investigation and it should be thoroughly checked as it may give wrong messages among different faiths,” Father Augustin Xess, parish priest of St Paul’s Church in Garhwa, told.
“As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, we don’t promote religious conversion.”
The tribal priest said Hindus, followers of the Sarna tribal religion and a small number of Muslims and Christians have been living in the area peacefully with great respect for all faiths.
“After the news of religious conversion came out, we have alerted our people in the area and asked them to give us an actual report,” he added.
Father Fabianus Sinduria, who coordinates pastoral work in Daltonganj Diocese, told that “we came to know of the incident only through the local Hindi newspaper and are waiting for the final say by the local administration.”