The Church in India has never been under such stress as in the Christmas season of 2020.
Starved of finances under a harsh law that regulates inter-national donations and the near absence of worshippers in the Covid-19 curfew, the Church cutting across denominations is pummelled by accusations from political foes and the seething anger of a section of the faithful outraged at exposes of corruption and moral turpitude, sometimes in the highest echelons of the clergy.
As the largest denomination, claiming a full 60 percent of the Christian population of about 30 million among 1.25 billion Indians, the Catholic Church gets more than its share of the torment from within and outside.
For the Episcopal, Evangelical, Pentecostal and independent churches, while some of the bigger groups have leaders facing serious charges of financial bungling and alienation of property — the polite word for selling off churches, graveyards or institutional lands — the main threat remains from the laws against religious conversion, once confined to a mere six states but now rapidly legislated in many more provinces by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP] which rules the country and controls two-thirds of the states. It does not seem too far away when it will be operational across the country.

A 6-year-old Dalit girl has been found dead in Kampur (Uttar Pradesh). The little girl had disappeared on the eve of the Deepavali festival (last November 15) from the Ghatampur area. She was found with signs of torture, rape, with an open ribcage and stolen lungs. Police say the little girl’s lungs were removed to perform some magical rituals, with the belief that this could help a woman give birth to a son. The suspects – Ankul Kuril, 20, and Beeran, 31, were arrested and confessed to giving the victim’s lungs to Parshuram Kuril to perform the ritual. The latter’s wife was also arrested because, despite knowing about the murder, she said nothing to anyone.
India is considered one of the country’s most at risk for women. According to official statistics, there is one rape every 15 minutes. In 2019, crimes against women grew by 7.9% compared to the previous year. But it is above all little girls who fall victim.
On November 16, also in Uttar Pradesh, in the district of Fatehpur, the bodies of two Dalit sisters aged 8 and 12 were found in a pond. Their family claims that their daughters went to the fields in the afternoon to pick vegetables, but they never came back. They were killed after a failed rape attempt. Both bodies have eye wound marks.
“These unspeakable attacks on girls have become a ‘chronic disease’,” says Msgr. Felix Machado, Secretary General of the Indian Bishops. “Our girls – he continues – are the most vulnerable in society and our Dalit girls are the most exploited and weakest in society and these violations are extremely worri-some.  This is a Spiritual failure.”

The registration of Christian marriages in Mumbai has come to a halt after the retirement of the marriage officer in July.
Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, newlywed couples are forced to travel to Pune to get their marri-age certificates stamped by state government authorities. Activists Godfrey Pimenta and Nicholas Almeida of the Watchdog Foundation have urged the state government to appoint a new officer in Mumbai at the earliest. Advocate Vivian D’Souza, Rita D’Souza as well as Tulip Miranda, president of the Bombay East Indian Association, have signed the request.
Pimenta said, “Mumbai has a Catholic popu-lation of 10 lakhs (1 million), and every year, thousands of couples get married in the 100-plus Catholic Churches that are located in Mumbai alone. The post of marriage officer remains vacant ever since the previous incumbent Ashish Lopez retired a few months ago.”
Pimenta explained the procedure saying, “Couples are required to procure their marriage certificate from the local church where the nuptials were solemnized. The certificate is then attested by the chancellor attached to Archbishop House in Colaba, and subsequently by a notary public. Later, it is to be stamped by the state home department and finally by the marriage officer whose office is in Mantralaya.”
In the absence of the Mumbai appointee, couples are required to travel to Pune to get attestation done through the Commissioner of Social Welfare. Almeida said, “This is a matter of concern since Pune has a high number of Covid-19 cases. More-over, the journey is tedious. The state government should immediately fill the vacancy in Mumbai.” The archdiocese of Bombay expressed concern as well. Spokesman Fr Nigel Barrett said, “The situa-tion of having no registrar of Christian marriages is indeed true. It has been communicated to the government about the urgency to appoint a registrar and we are hopeful it will be addressed soon.”

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s intervention led to Pakistan escaping sanctions for lack of religious freedom and India stopped from being listed on a Special Watch List, said US Ambassador-at-Large for Inter-national Religious Freedom, Samuel Brownback.
“There were several reco-mmendations that the Secretary [Pomoeo] did not follow, and this was one of them,” he said about keeping India away from the Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) list. The US Commission for International Religious Free-dom (USCIRF) had recommend-ed that India be put in the CPC list because of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
Brownback said the US had privately discussed these issues with the Indian government at a high level, and will continue to get raised. Pompeo is “well aware” of the statute (CAA) and the issues associated with the Modi government. And as I said, he’s raised it at the highest levels, but just decided at this point in time not to place them on a CPC or a Special Watch List,” he said during a briefing on rollout of US action against religious freedom violators. Though Brownback was critical of India, he did not get baited by a question posed by a Pakistani-origin journalist who wanted to know why Pakistan was on CPC and India was not.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the southern Indian State of Karnataka has reconverted 23 people from five Christian families to Hindu-ism. A reconversion ceremony on Nov. 29 was organized by Anant Kumar Hegde, a BJP leader and MP for Uttara Kannada district. “Hegde was handpicked by the Hindutva hierarchy to create communal divisions and tension in the coastal belt of Karnataka,” Sajan K. George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians, told UCA News.
“After BJP victories in the 2014 and 2019 general elections, the Sangh Parivar [fanatic group] moved with the speed and cunning of a barracuda to attack and weaken the constitutional institutions needed to transform Indian society into a more equal and just one.”
George said the BJP has used the twin weapons of a brute majority and communal polarization to implement laws and policies that have impacted most adversely those who are denied all rights and can make no claims to equality: women, Dalits, backward castes and tribal people.
“This advance towards a Hindu Rashtra [Hindu nation] is viewed with concern and alarm by many, but as far as the majority are concerned, they feel that only members of minority communities will be threatened while they themselves will be guaranteed some kind of a privileged status,” he added.

Assam is planning a law that will require the bride and groom to declare their religion and income in official documents a month before the wedding. Against the backdrop of many other BJP-ruled states bringing in laws to check “love jihad,” the Assam government says its aim is to “empower our sisters.”
The ruling BJP’s move comes ahead of polls in Assam next year, which the party is confident of winning. State Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said his govern-ment’s law was not entirely like the ones in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, but would be similar.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has fielded 500 Christian and 112 Muslim candidates for the local body elections in Kerala.
If the BJP manages to win at least municipal corporations in these elections, it would brighten the party’s chances in the Kerala assembly elections scheduled to be held in 2021.
Kerala will elect its local bodies on December 8, 10 and 14 and the results are expected on December 16.
The state has total 27,656,579 voters: 13,172,629 male, 14, 483,668 female and 282 trans-gender. More than 75,000 candidates are in the fray for the polls after November 24, the last day for withdrawing nominations.
The voters will choose from 54,494 candidates for 941 grama panchayats. The candidates contesting in 152 block panchayats number 6,877 while 1,317 will fight it out for 14 district panchayats.
The 87 municipalities in the state will see 10,339 candidates and the six corporations have 1,986 candidates
At 8,497, Malappuram tops the list candidates in the fray, followed by Ernakulam 7,256, Thrissur 7,020 and Palakkad 6,532.

Hundreds of people have been injured at a gathering of Christians preparing to celebrate Christmas. There are even some unconfirmed reports of deaths.
The area is isolated, perhaps not allow witnesses and the police refuse to respond to calls. The violence took place in the village of Sindhwaram, in Chhattisgarh: from 2.00 AM night until the morning, a crowd of drunk and armed people attacked a tent where groups of Christians who had been celebrating the beginning of the Advent season in preparation for Christmas had gone to sleep the previous day. The gathering was also attended by faithful from other villages around. The village members have sealed off the area and are not allowing anyone to enter or take photos or videos.
Activist Arun Pannalal, president of the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum, managed to get in touch with the Gajral police station only morning at 6 am. The police denied all violence. The victims are being housed in the police station. Members of the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum say that as soon as they heard of the attack, they immediately phoned the police, but the phone lines were cut off from 2am until this morning.
For the past two years Arun Pannalal has been appealing to the Chief Minister of the State and the Minister of the Interior, “but my requests – he tells AsiaNews – have not been taken seriously. The entire Bastar region suffers from premeditated attacks targeting Christains. They are attacks related to a planned conspiracy. The government should act immediately ordering an in-depth investigation into this violence.”
–ASIANNEWS

Cardinal George Alencherry has formed a commission to frame guidelines for interfaith marriages following a controversy over a retired bishop solemnizing such a marriage between a Christian bride and a Muslim groom in a church in India’s Kerala State.
Cardinal Alencherry, the head of the Eastern-rite Syro-Malabar Church based in southern India, “wants to clear the confusion among the faithful over interreligious marriages and constituted a commission of canon law experts to prepare the guidelines to be followed in interreligious marriages in churches,” said Father Alax Onampally, secretary of the church’s media commission. Card. Alencherry, the president of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council, also sought a separate report from Archbishop Antony Kariyil of Ernakulam-Angamali Arch-diocese, where the controversial marriage was solemnized.
On Nov. 9, Bishop Mathew Vaniyakizhakkel of Satna in the central State of Madhya Pradesh, blessed the marriage between the Catholic bride and Muslim groom at Kadavanthra St Joseph Church in Ernakulam-Angamali Archdiocese. Archbishop Kariyil’s probe will investigate if the parish priest obtained permission from the local bishop to solemnize the marriage in church.

An elderly Jesuit priest struggling in an Indian jail with ill health says he still finds happiness in listening to the stories of other inmates and credits his congregation for the training that helped him cope with such a difficult situation. Father Stan Swamy, 84, has been in Taloja Central Jail in Mumbai, capital of Maharashtra in western India, since Oct. 9 following his arrest on charges of sedition and links with outlawed Maoist rebels.
The priest is suffering from Parkinson’s disease, a hernia and age-related ailments and is unable to eat and drink without help from other prisoners.
Inmates help him to bathe, wash his clothes and do other daily chores on account of his age and ill health. “Listening to the life narratives of the poor prisoners is my joy in Taloja prison. I see God in their pains and smiles,” Father Swamy told one of his priest colleagues in a telephone call. “Now, I am using a baby-sipper mug, which I purchased through the prison hospital. I have communicated this need to our lawyers. I am still awaiting to receive the sipper-tumbler,” Father Swamy said.
The priest maintains an attitude of contentment even in his struggle and gives credit to his Jesuit training and close to 50 years of working with under privileged indigenous and Dalit former untouchable people.
“My needs are limited. The adivasis [indigenous people] and the Society of Jesus have taught me to lead a simple life,” he said.