All the Latin rite dioceses in India will organize special prayers to show solidarity with the Church and people of Sri Lanka.

“To pledge our closeness and solidarity with the victims of the multiple bomb blasts that took place in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, I would like to propose that we observe coming Sunday, 28th April, 2019 – Divine Mercy Sunday — as a day of prayer and solidarity,” says an April 24 circular from the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI) addressed to all the Latin rite prelates in the country.

CCBI president Archbishop Filipe Neri Ferrao of Goa and Daman has suggested that all parishes during the Sunday Mass to add “special prayers of the faithful for the departed souls, the injured and the affected families, who are plunged in grief and pain due to these senseless attacks.”

The prelate also urged the bishops to “spend some time in prayer before the Eucharistic Risen Lord, so that the country of Sri Lanka may experience healing and receive the gift of peace.”

Security has been beefed up at churches in Indian capital, New Delhi after a series of suicide bombings killed more than 300 people in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday.

Armed Police are guarding Sacred Heart Cathedral in the capital and asking churchgoers to pass through metal detectors. They also frisk visitors who enter the 88-year-old building.

Similar security measures have been put in place at most of the 200 churches in the city, police spokesperson Madhur Verma told media.

They have also deployed special vehicles carrying trained anti-terrorism personnel outside prominent churches, which are also under the surveillance of plainclothes police officers checking for suspicious movements, according to Verma.

The cathedral attracts thousands of people, including non-Christians, at Christmas and Easter when church officials inform police, who take care of crowd management, traffic regulations and security. “Police provided security during Holy Week and they continue it. We believe it is a precautionary measure. It is good to be cautious,” said Father Savarimuthu Sankar, spokesman for Delhi Archdiocese.

The cathedral has provided police with complete assistance and requests visitors to cooperate with police to remain safe and secure, he said. “We are here to give fool proof security to churches and people in the national capital. It’s our duty,” said a security official posted in front of the cathedral.

A group miscreants has burned down the second oldest Catholic school in Manipur over disciplinary action taken against some students. St Joseph Higher Secondary School at Sugnu in Chandel district of the north-eastern Indian state lost all its files and records of the past 55 years after the miscreants set it on fire around 9 pm on April 25. Father Jacob Chapao, the director of the Manipur Catholic Youth Organisation, has issued a condemnation letter, slamming the miscreants for the barbaric act. “Such barbaric act of vandalism on an educational institution is against the cause of humanity,” the priest said. The school, which has some 1400 students in the current academic year, took disciplinary action on six students but were allowed to attend the class as usual.

Police are protecting a Catholic convent and a school two weeks after mobs attacked and injured several people, including four nuns, in southern India’s Tamil Nadu State. Indian bishops on April 6 appealed to political leaders in New Delhi and Tamil Nadu “to deal sternly” with criminals who attacked the convent of the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and its Little Flower Higher Secondary School in Chinna-salem town on March 25-26. “All the injured nuns are back from hospital now but police continue to guard the school and convent,” the congregation’s provincial superior, Sister Devaseer Mary, told ucanews.com on April 7.

Mobs attacked the school and convent after a grade 10 student committed suicide in the school hostel on the afternoon of March 25, hours after she had taken her mathematics exam after expressing fears of failing it. Local police officer N. Ramanathan told ucanews.com that the violence began after the school management refused to entertain a demand for 1 million rupees (US$14,250) in compensation.

Sister Mary said the school management refused to pay any compensation because the school had not committed any mistake. But those who demanded compensation on behalf of parents of the deceased student “left angrily saying they knew how they could get this amount.”

A bigger attack followed on March 26. About 200 people armed with sharp weapons, iron rods and wooden batons entered the compound. They attacked the convent, its chapel, school offices and staff in what appeared to be an organized criminal plan. They beat up nuns and school staff, destroyed furniture, windows, computers and shelves in the school office, and desecrated the chapel. The nuns estimate a loss of about 10 million rupees (US$1.4 million) from the attacks. “We are documenting the loss in a systematic way. We want the authorities to recover our loss from the criminals,” Sister Mary said.

Catholics have challenged in Supreme Court the decision of two federally ruled territories to cancel traditional Good Friday holiday, making it restricted holiday.

The administrations in the western Indian territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Daman and Diu have moved Good Friday from the list of public holidays to restricted holidays when staff have an option to take a day off or work.

Lay leader Anthony Francisco Duarte from Moti Daman in Daman, has filed a public interest writ petition in the Bombay High Court to challenge the notifications issued by the administration.

The petition is likely to come up for hearing on April 11, Indian bishops’ con-ference secretary general Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas said in a statement, seeking prayers.

Restricted holiday would mean all public institutions including schools and colleges have to necessarily remain open on April 19, this year’s Good Friday.

The Christian community these territories “are pained and anguished by the cancellation of a holiday on Good Friday which is held sacred by them,” the Bishop Mascarenhas said. In another case the Supreme Court on April 4 rejected a Christian organisation’s plea seeking rescheduling of the April 18 polling for the Lok Sabha in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. A SC Bench, comprising Justice S.A. Bobde, Justice S. Abdul Nazeer and Justice Indira Banerjee, declined the plea for an early hearing. The petitioner contended this year Maundy Thursday falls on April 18, the polling day, and it is a liturgical holy day leading to Good Friday and Easter for the Christian community.

Bp Jacob Manathodath, apostolic administrator of Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese, on April 5 submitted to Rome the enquiry report on the controversial land sale.

The administrator handed over the report to Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, the prefect of the Pontifical Congregation for Oriental Churches, in the Vatican, says a press release from Father Paul Karendan, the Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese’s Public Relations Officer.

Cardinal Sandri and Bp Manathodath spent two hours discussing the land sale controversy as well as court case on fake documents against Cardinal Alencherry, head of the Syro-Malabar Church, the larger of the two Oriental Catholic rites in India. The 75-year-old Argentinian cardinal said he would study the report seriously and take appropriate action. Until then, the Vatican official wants the content of the report kept confidential, the PRO’s note says quoting Bishop Manathodath.

A series of real estate transactions since 2015 reportedly resulted in financial losses for the archdiocese. On November 29, 2017, Cardinal Alencherry set up a committee to investigate. The committee submitted its report on January 4, 2018.

The staff at St Stephen’s College, Delhi has requested the principal to hold a staff meeting to discuss the changes in the admission policy passed by the Governing Body (GB).

On March 14, the governing body decided to hold an aptitude test for undergraduate courses from this year and increase the merit differential percentage from 20% to 25% for those who come under church of North India (CNI) Church of North India-Delhi (CNI-D). The college has also decided to increase the admission fee.

The teachers claim that the decisions were taken without consulting them. The teachers association held a meeting about the same. According to one of the teacher’s, the decision for an aptitude test is purely an academic matter, but the general body took the decision without discussing it. In the past, departments had said that they couldn’t hold such tests, the teacher added.

In the year 2015, the then principal Valson Thampu introduced the aptitude test along with an interview for the admissions. While 15 marks were allotted for the interview the rest was calculated based on the class 12 marks of the candidates. Last year however, aptitude tests were not held for the Physics and Chemistry Honors program.

The Arunachal Pradesh Catholic Association has withdrawn its prayer petition appealing to the Catholics to pray and vote for Congress candidate from Arunachal West constituency and former chief minister Nabam Tuki.

The prayer petition came after the appeal went viral in social media and caught the Election Commission’s attention, which asked the association to withdraw its appeal and issue an apology, the Times of India reported.

The prayer petition signed by the secretary general of the association, Pekhi Nabum, also caught the attention of Tuki’s opponent, Kiren Rijiju of BJP. Rijiju posted about it on Facebook.

“This is not proper. We all are children of the God who never discriminates. Democracy is system in which the government is elected by the people. I’ve always served the people with full sincerity.