Cardinal Oswald Gracias and two auxiliary bishops of Bombay archdiocese are facing charges of inaction over a child abuse case complaint against a priest. The cardinal and Bishops Dominic Savio Fernandes and John Rodrigues recently app-roached the Bombay High Court to get the case withdrawn.

The bench of justices Ranjit More and Bharati Dangre, who heard the plea on June 17, has posted the matter for hearing at a later date. According to the police, a minor boy was sodomized on November 27, 2015, by Father Lawrence Johnson, who was then his parish priest. Three days later, the boy’s parents filed a complaint at Shivaji Nagar police station that the priest had abused their child.

Cardinal Gracias told the high court that he did not inform the police about the alleged abuse because the boy’s parents had already informed them, who then registered a complaint.

The mob lynching of a Muslim man in India’s Jharkhand State shows religious hate is spreading to the peace-loving people in the tribal heartland, church leaders and tribal activists say. The death of 24-year-old Tabrej Ansari was the third incident in the state in two years and the latest in a series of such incidents at the hands of Hindu groups who want to make India a Hindu-only nation.

Ansari was tied to a tree and beaten by a mob on June 18 after being accused of attempting to steal a motorbike. He was handed over to police but fell sick and died in hospital on June 22, police told media.

However, rights activist Afzal Anis, coordinator of Aman Biradri, which works for communal harmony, claimed that Ansari died of his injuries in police custody. “It is very unfortunate that for the past one or two years we have been hearing of mob lynching in our state where for centuries people have been living with harmony and brotherhood,” said Father Anand David Xalxo, based in State capital Ranchi.

Father Xalxo, public relations officer of Ranchi Archdiocese, said the state has been witnessing such incidents “for some time now as religion-based hate spreads” and “predators have no respect for the law.”

Cardinal Oswald Gracias, head of the Catholic Church in India, was the chief guest of the Eid Milap Function organized by Jamiat-ul-Ulema in New Delhi Eid Milan.

The religious festival after Ramadan was celebrated at the National Level on June 10. It was organized by Jamat Ulamai Hind, one of the biggest Muslim congregations in India.

Given below is the text of Cardinal Gracias’ address at the event:

At this moment, as we celebrate Eid Milan, we feel a strong bond of affection and unity among us all. God has brought us all together this evening, to celebrate this function. You have just completed your month of fasting Ramadan, this fasting has helped you to spend time, re-connecting with God in prayer, strengthening your feelings of love for the needy with the practice of Zakaat, also bonded every family together.

Ramzan the month of fasting, has not been a month of pain, but a period of joy because you experience the Peace of God in your homes and in your persons. Your Ramadan fast, reminds me of our own Christian fast at the time of LENT. Lent is similar in many ways to Ramazan, Lent is a time, to set aside Time for God, to re-connect and bond with the sufferings of Jesus Christ who was crucified on the CROSS, to make reparation for our sins.

A federal investigation into the Missionaries of Charity Congregation of Mother Teresa has been recommended by India’s Jharkhand State following allegations that nuns diverted funds for unspecified objectives.

The state government run by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has recommended the federal Home Ministry to conduct a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into foreign donations received and spent by Missionaries of Charity and all its subsidiaries, media reports said on June 19.

In the past 11 years, according to Hindi media, the five main subsidiaries of Missionaries of Charity have spent 9.27 billion rupees (US$154 million) on purposes other than those specified in donations, which is illegal according to Indian laws.

The five subsidiaries include both active and contemplative sections of Missionaries of Charity Brothers, Missionaries of Charity Sisters and Missionaries of Charity Fathers.

Hindu groups in Jharkhand have accused Christians of diverting overseas donations so that they can be used for converting socially poor Hindu Dalits and tribal people in villages.

However, Missionaries of Charity spokeswoman Sunita Kumar told ucanews.com that media reports were “totally false and misleading.”

“Every single pie of donations is properly accounted and utilized only for the specified objectives… annual returns are filed as per law. We have no idea why we are being probed,” said Kumar, who is based in Kolkata, the eastern city where Missionaries of Charity is based.

Abp. Thomas D’Souza of Kolkata also expressed dismay over the development.

Christian Leaders in India have deplored a newly appointed federal minister’s description of religious conversion as “the exchange of sex for favours.”

Minister of State for Animal Husbandry Pratap Chandra Sarangi made the comment in an interview with English news portal The Print on June 3.

“Suppose somebody helped a girl in a medical or engineering college and wanted to enjoy the girl physically. That would be treated as a crime, an inhuman act,” said the first-time Odisha MP, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“Similarly, if somebody wants to convert or exploit someone’s belief by giving some service or money, then that should also be treated as a crime — a crime against nature, against humanity.”

Sarangi was the Odisha chief of Bajrang Dal, a hard-line Hindu group, when Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons were burned alive by extremists in 1999. He was accused of being linked to the gruesome murders but denied the allegations.

Odisha, formerly Orissa, is an eastern state where Christians have faced sustained persecution, particularly during riots in 2008.

Father Kulakanta Dandasena from Kandhamal condemned Sarangi’s statement and said it sent a bad message to the country and the international community, “which sees India as a secular country that respects all classes, creeds and religions.”

“We totally disagree with whatever the minister has said because it is vulgar and not true,” he said. “Christians are not involved in any kind of religious conversion and have always respected other faiths and beliefs. We have no differences.”

Pope Francis arrived in Romania on May 31 for a three-day, cross-country pilgrimage. The visit took place 20 years after St John Paul II made the first-ever papal visit to a majority Orthodox country, which is on the Catholic and European periphery.

On this occasion, Arch-bishop Felix Machado of Vasai recalls his visit to Romania when he worked in the Vatican during 1994-1998. I had participated in a meeting in Bucharest, Romania, invited by Catholic Action, a recognized lay association well known in Italy.

It was a memorable meeting and I saw and met so many Orthodox Christians and got to know the place.

One thing is sure, that Pope Francis, like Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, is very interested in Catholic-Orthodox dialogue. Pope Francis is much loved by the Orthodox leaders as we can see that Patriarch Kiril of Moscow, hard liner, has met only Pope Francis. Pope Francis is close to Bartholomew, Patriarch of Istanbul.

In what could be termed as yet another threat to the Catholic Church in Manipur, a hand grenade was found placed at the gate of retired Priests’ Home in Imphal, Manipur, on June 6 morning.

According to sources, when the driver went to open the gate on June 6 morning at around 6:20, a hand grenade was found at the gate in a polythene bag. Police came and defused the bomb, the source said.

Fr Solomon, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Imphal said that there were no threats or any monetary demands prior to the discovery of the bomb at the gate.

“We are shocked and surprised at the same time. When we heard of the threat, we rushed from the Archbishop’s House to the Priests’ Home,” the Chancellor said. The police came to the spot and defused the bomb and took it away, Fr Solomon added.

The Andhra Pradesh Federation of Churches has welcomed a clean government promised by the southern Indian state’s new chief minister.
“We are well pleased of your promise that your government would be revolutionary and would stand as an example and model to the country within a year,” the federation said in a letter addressed to Yeduguri Sandinti Jaganmohan Reddy, who on May 30 took over as Andhra Pradesh’s chief minister The federation, the apex body of the bishops and heads of mainline Churches and major Christian denominations in the state congratulated Reddy for his “landslide victory” in the recent assembly elections.

India’s 2019 general elections could have redirected the country’s politics from the trajectory it had been hurtling on for the past five years. There had been some wishful thinking that if the electorate replaced the ruling pro-Hindu party, the country’s strength — its plurality — would have been protected.

But the election’s outcome was different. In a historic man-date, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was given a second term to run the world’s largest democracy. Modi is the first Prime Minister since 1971 to return to power with an absolute majority. He is the third one to do so after the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi.

In the recent elections, Modi’s pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) garnered 303 seats while with his allies it has 353 seats in the 545-member Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament.

The question now for many Indians is: What comes next?

“A new battle for the idea of India begins today,” wrote Shiv Visvanathan in The Hindu on May 24 when the election results were declared.

To some the ‘battle’ is one picked by a BJP leadership that seeks to subvert the secular principles of the Indian constitution, a foundation that allows religious and ethnic plurality to breathe in the country.

The main apprehension among religious minority leaders and a section of left-liberals has been that the BJP could change the constitution to discard the parliamentary system.