Church leaders and activists have joined political leaders in opposing the federal government’s decision to auction coal blocks for commercial mining in the eastern Indian State of Jharkhand, which they say will disturb biodiversity and cause displacement.

Hearing the case on July 15, the Supreme Court asked the federal government’s opinion on Jharkhand State government challenging the federal decision to go ahead with the auction of coal blocks.

“Tribals in the state dependent on farming and forestry, so allotting land for mining will destroy vast areas of the forest as well as the farmland resulting displacement and migration,” said Father Vincent Ekka. He heads the department of tribal studies at the Jesuit-run Indian Social Institute in New Delhi.

“I even doubt the central government’s claim of job opportunities for locals. Mining goes on in several states for decades without concern about its impact. If it provides job for locals, why there is a mass migration from these states,” Father Ekka said.

“There are other ways for the government to generate income and stabilize the nation’s economic condition without disturbing the livelihood of tribal people, who are the protectors of the environment,” the Jesuit priest added.

A body representing prominent churches in the southern Indian State of Telangana has urged the state government to build a church along with a temple and a mosque in the new secretariat.

The Federation of Telugu Churches, a body of churches in the state, also reminded their Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao about a regular prayer previously conducted in the old secretariat building.

“Christian workshops were conducted every Wednesday during the lunch break,” in the old secretariat, according to Father Anthoniraj Thumma, executive secretary of the Federation.

Father Thumma said in a press note on July 13 that “this time we have requested a different church building, which the mosque and temple had. “On previous occasions, we have requested the government for the allotment of land in the secretariat. This is a long-pending request.”

Catholic Bishops in Tamil Nadu have started an online program to provide career guidance to Dalit students in the southern Indian State.
Although the Tamil Nadu Bishops’ Council have conducted many career guidance programs in the past this is the first online career guidance program for Dalit Christians, said Bishop P. Thomas Paulsamy of Dindigul while launching the program on July 5.

The bishop is the chairperson of the council’s Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes that conducts the program.

As many as 150 students from the state’s 18 Catholic dioceses attended the first-day program. The students will be guided in their desired area of study once a week, said Father Kulandainathan Adaikalasamy, the organizer and the secretary for the commission.

The program, he told Matters India, aims at providing “the best education possible for all the poor and the marginalized children.”

The commission hopes to instill new ideas and thoughts in Dalit students, to create new goals, and to make their dreams come true. No student would be deprived of higher education because of poverty, untouchabi-lity, and ignorance, he added.

The students sat in groups in villages maintaining the distance while attending the online pro-gram.

A Catholic archbishop and 12 nuns are among thousands of persons who have tested positive for Covid-19 in India in the past days.

The nuns work at a church-run hospital in the north-eastern State of Assam. State officials sealed off their hospital and moved them to a government facility for treatment.
Retired Archbishop Bernard Moras of Bangalore in southern India tested positive for Covid-19 on July 3 during a routine check-up at church-run St John’s Medical College. His condition is stable, the hospital said.

The prelate and nuns are among some 700,000 Covid-19 cases reported in India as of July 5. Some 24,000 people tested positive on July 5 in the worst single-day spike in the country. Close to 20,000 have already died.

India has been struggling to flatten the coronavirus curve since cases began to increase in mid-March. Since July, the country has been adding more than 20,000 infections each day, with more people testing positive even in villages.

A mission hospital in Assam’s Dibrugarh town was sealed after 12 Catholic nuns, including a doctor, was tested Covid-19 positive. The nuns and a domestic support working in the St Vincenza Gerosa (VG) Hospital were on July 4 found to be infected with the coronavirus.

The first to test positive was the superior of the VG hospital community, who had traveled to Guwahati, Assam’s commercial capital, some 445 km southwest of Dibrugarh. On July 31, she showed mild symptoms of fever and a bad stomach. This led to the testing of all residents of the community.
Although four others have tested negative, the local administration has declared the entire hospital area a contaminated zone.

Samples of all other inmates, staff, primary contacts and regular visitors are being collected and sent for testing at Regional Medical Research Centre, Dibrugarh.

Four of the nuns are senior citizens – Sisters Antonia Mampilly, 85, Eileen Almeida, 72, Michael Serrao, 82, and Martha Kochuparambil, 83.

Expressing shock over the developments, Bishop Joseph Aind of Dibrugarh said, “It is sad that the lifeline hospital of people in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh has now been sealed. My heart goes out to all the Sisters and the inmates of VG Hospital and I invite everyone to pray for their quick recovery from the disease and for the reopening of the hospital.”

In a note to the people in his diocese, Bishop George Pallipparambil of Miao in Arunachal Pradesh has asked them to pray for the sisters and advised everyone to take extreme care to avoid the virus and comply with the lockdown restrictions.

Catholic lay leaders in India have accused church officials of ignoring papal instructions to deal with sex abuse by trying to shield a bishop facing allegations of murder, womanizing and corruption.
Lay leaders Chhotebhai and Melwyn Fernandes urged the papal nuncio to India, Archbishop Giambattista Diquattro, to take action against Bishop Kannikadass Antony William of Mysore in Karnataka State.

Chhotebhai is the convener of the Indian Catholic Forum and adviser to Catholic Church Re-form International, while Fernandes is general secretary of the Association of Concerned Catholics, a forum of laypeople in India.

Some 37 priests sought Bi-shop William’s removal from office a year ago. The priests accused him of financial corru-ption, fathering children and having sexual relations with several women.

Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai has explained the confusion that resulted in some laypeople leading funeral rites and accusing their parish priests of not attending the last ceremonies of Covid-19 victims.
The cardinal’s statement came after the media published reports about lay Catholics leading funeral prayers and blessing graves to bury their family members. The reports also accused priests of refusing to bury Covid-19 victims for fear of contracting the virus.

“The archdiocese wishes to make clear that from the very beginning of the lockdown” on March 25, the clergy have been “responding to funeral requests with care and compassion,” the cardinal said in a June 26 statement.

He said the archdiocese had asked parishes not to have public requiem Masses. It also asked for bodies to be taken directly to the burial ground “where all the funeral prayers can be said before the burial.”
Directions also advised limiting the number of mourners to the minimum and keeping police informed of the funeral. In a video message, Cardinal Gracias also asked his priests not to visit houses because of the lockdown rules. “There was no direction to the priests to keep away from funerals,” Fr Nigel Barrett, spokesperson of Cardinal Gracias, told UCA News on June 28.

There must have been “rare incidents of some priests failing to arrive at a cemetery” but “most of our priests attend funerals with sensitivity and compassion,” he said.

A Catholic bishop in India who donated one of his kidneys four years ago now wants to quit his bishop’s office to become a hermit.

Auxiliary Bishop Jacob Muricken of Palai in the southern Indian State of Kerala has applied to church authorities to relieve him from the bishop’s office to help him lead a simple monastic life.

The 57-year-old prelate told UCA News that he sent his application to the Synod of his Eastern-rite Syro-Malabar Catholic Church two years ago and is waiting for a decision. He is the first Indian bishop to make such a request.

Cardinal George Alencherry, the major archbishop of the Syro-Malabar Church, has “promised to consider my case positively,” the bishop said.

A decision has been delayed because of the Synod, the decision-making body of the church, needs to get approvals from the Vatican to relieve a bishop from office, Bishop Muricken said.

The bishop maintains his decision to quit the bishop’s office comes from “an inspiration from God” and he will follow it provided he gets permission from the Synod and the Vatican.

“It is a special call within a call to become a monk and abstain from official life as a bishop and other administrative roles in the diocese. It is to become closer to God and nature,” he said.

The idea of leading a solitary life came to him in 2017, five years after he was ordained as auxiliary bishop of Palai. “Until then, I had no such desire.”

The bishop said he looks forward to spending “the rest of my life more in prayer and meditation and leading an eco-friendly life away from the hustle and bustle of the routines of a bishop.”

Even as a bishop, he spends long hours in prayer and follows vegetarianism. He gets up around 2.30am each day and spends three hours in personal prayer before joining others in morning prayers, people close to him said.

Bishop Muricken said he does not plan to join any existing monastic congregation. He wants to lead a secluded life in the hilly Idukki district without any assistance or helpers.

Catholic bishops in the southern Indian state of Kerala have urged the state government to enact stringent laws to curb misuse of social media after a nun’s picture was morphed and shared on social media with offensive slogans. Sister Lucina Porunnedam said a social media user altered one of her photographs holding a placard with a slogan against alcohol consumption. The morphed picture had anti-Church slogans.

“It is a deliberate attempt to defame Catholic nuns and portray the Catholic Church in a poor light,” she told UCA News.

She lodged a police complaint on May 18 seeking action against the social media user.

Sister Porunnedam, who co-ordinates an anti-liquor campaign in Tellicherry Archdiocese in Kerala, is a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart.

The accused used offensive slogans against Catholic nuns and priests, she said. “The morphed photo also took pot shots at Christ and belittled Catholic priests,” the 45-year-old nun said.