Christians have welcomed a court order calling on authorities to approve requests for prayer gatherings in Uttar Pradesh, the most populous Indian state, amid a rise in persecution against Christians. A two-judge bench of the Allahabad High Court, the top court in the northern state, directed state authorities to “consider” representations from Christians for holding religious prayer meetings and “decide as per the law” after taking opinion from the local police, on June 20. The judges said that they found that the “holding of religious prayers is not violative of any law that has been shown to us”. “Under the constitution every citizen has a right to practice and perform his faith and religious congregation that is, of course, subject to public order,” they said. The court asked the petitioners to file fresh applications to the state authorities which they should “consider and decide” as per the law by taking opinion from the local police. The order came in response to petitions from different Christian groups accusing government officials of denying them permission to hold routine prayer meetings. “I was forced to approach the top court after the local police did not allow me to hold a prayer meeting on the premises of my legally registered society,” Pastor Sukesh Kumar, one of the petitioners, told UCA News on June 23. “The risk involved in holding such a prayer meeting without the consent of police is too high as they level false charges of religious conversion,” Kumar said. It is common for police to arrest and jail prayer leaders and others without bothering with “a preliminary probe,” he said. Getting bail or quashing the case become tiresome and troublesome, and it takes many years and lot of time and money to get the name cleared, he alleged. Seeking protection from the top court is “the best way” and Christians are glad the court granted “required relief,” he added.

Indian Church leaders have urged the government of northern Uttarakhand state to boost safety following several air accidents that have killed Hindu pilgrims in less than two months. In the latest tragedy, a helicopter carrying pilgrims from Kedarnath in the Rudraprayag district crashed on June 15, killing all seven people on board including the pilot. Following initial investigations, the authorities said the helicopter fell victim to bad weather in the Himalayan region. The tragedy prompted a call by Indian bishops for the state government to improve safety measures. “The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) expresses its deepest condolences to the families of pilgrims who lost their lives in the recent helicopter crash during Kedarnath Yatra. May the departed souls rest in peace,” conference spokesman Father Robinson Rodrigues told. “We are perturbed by the series of helicopter accidents in a short span, carrying pilgrims. The CBCI urges the government to investigate these incidents and take immediate measures to ensure the safety and security of our Hindu brothers and sisters, undertaking this sacred journey,” Rodrigues said.

Christian leaders in India’s strife-torn Manipur state have expressed hope that peace will gradually be restored after authorities seized large caches of arms and ammunition from areas dominated by the Hindu majority Meitei ethnic group. The seizure of arms “gives us an assurance that the state administration under the direct control of the federal government is serious about restoring peace,” an indigenous Christian leader told, on condition of anonymity. Security forces seized 328 weapons and more than 9,000 assorted rounds of ammunition from Meitei-dominated districts in the Imphal Valley on June 13-14. The state has experienced a bitter armed ethnic conflict between the Meitei people and the Christian-dominated Kuku-Zo tribal group over the past two years. It has claimed at least 260 lives and displaced 60,000 people, mostly Christians. Christian leaders say the radical Meitei group Arambai Tenggol looted weapons and ammunition from government stores, including police stations, and used them to unleash violence against Christians. According to reports, more than 5,000 weapons such as machine guns, AK 47, and 406 Carbines were among the looted weaponry, besides some 60,000 rounds of ammunition. Critics also say the previous state government, run by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), tacitly supported the Hindu violence since it began on May 3, 2023, after Meitei people attacked a Kuki protest march that opposed a move to grant tribal status to Meiteis. The state was brought under federal rule on Feb. 13 after the then-chief minister, N. Biren Singh, was forced to resign due to his failure to contain the violence and restore peace.

The Catholic bishops in India have offered condolences and expressed solidarity with the victims and the families of an Air India flight that crashed on June 12, shortly after taking off from the western city of Ahmedabad. At least 241 of the 242 people on board were killed when the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed in a residential area, just outside Ahmedabad Airport in the state’s commercial capital. “The death toll may increase” as several on the ground and nearby buildings are affected, G.S. Malik, Ahmedabad Police Commissioner, told the media. The only surviving passenger, Vishwas Kumar Ramesh, a 40-year-old British citizen of Indian origin, is recovering in a hospital. “The entire Catholic Community of Gujarat is aghast,” Archbishop Thomas Macwan of Gandhinagar, based in the state capital, told UCA News on June 12. He said he was in his office, barely 20 kilometres away from the crash site, “when the news came in, and my heart was crying.” The prelate said he also learnt that five to six Indian Christians, including a recently married Christian couple from a village in the Ahmedabad diocese, had died in the crash. Macwan said he had known Gujarat state’s former chief minister Vijay Rupani, who tragically died in the mishap, and described him as “a good man.”

Some 10,000 Catholics gathered in a tiny village parish in southern India recently to witness the official declaration of a Eucharist miracle, billed as the first such Vatican-approved miracle in India. The May 31 event came more than 11 years after the miracle — the face of Christ appearing in the holy host during a Eucharistic celebration — occurred at Christ the King Church in Vilakkannur parish, in Thalassery archdiocese on Nov. 15, 2013. The Vatican approved the miracle two months ago, following a theological analysis and scientific evaluation, which allowed the archdiocese to install the miraculous host in the parish. The official declaration came after prolonged studies, both theological and scientific.
In March, the Dicastery of Doctrine of Faith declared that “nothing prevented the declaration of the Vilakkannur Eucharist as an extraordinary event.” The incident was first studied by a doctrinal committee of the Syro-Malabar Church, and its report was submitted in December 2013. Following further studies, the Dicastery of the Doctrine of Faith in 2018 requested that the consecrated host be sent to the Vatican through the nuncio for closer examination. In September 2023, the Vatican sought to conduct scientific studies on the host to establish that no foreign substance was present, forming the image of Jesus on it. Following the Vatican’s instructions, the host was taken to Bangalore’s Christ University for scientific studies in January 2024. A team of theologians and scientists at the university, which is run by the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate priests, conducted the studies. The studies in India and abroad “have established that the sacred image was formed by the same substance as that of the host and there is no other trace of any other material,” archdiocesan chancellor Mutta-thukunnel told local media.

A new church built beside a destroyed one, where a Protestant Christian was burnt alive in Kandhamal – the epicentre of the 2008 anti-Christian riots in eastern India’s Odisha state – is a sign of hope and renewed faith, say Church leaders. The Catholic Church of Archangel Michael in Gudrikia, a substation under the Padangi parish in Kandhamal district, was blessed on May 26 by Archbishop John Barwa of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar. The new church was built near an old church, which was attacked during the 2008 anti-Christian riots. The rioting Hindu mob destroyed the church after burning alive Mathew Nayak, a school teacher, for refusing to give up his Christian faith. “The new church is a sign of hope and faith among Christians, as it comes following the worst anti-Christian violence,” said Father Sebastian Thottamkara, the parish priest in Padangi.

A court in India’s national capital has upheld the termination of a Christian army officer for “indiscipline,” after he persi-stently refused to lead a weekly religious parade, considering it against his faith.
Officer Samuel Kamalesan “has kept his religion above a lawful command from his superior. This clearly is an act of indiscipline,” said the Delhi High Court in its May 30 order. The court upheld the termination.
Kamalesan, a Protestant Chri-stian, was terminated in March 2021, four years after he joined the army, without providing him any benefits, such as a pension or gratuity. He joined the force as a Lieutenant and was appointed the troop leader of a squadron com-prising Sikh soldiers.
As the leader of his troop, Kamalesan was required to lead the troop in a weekly parade to a Gurudwara, a Sikh temple, and join prayers inside the innermost temple, its sanctum sanctorum, with temple priests. Kamalesan refused, stat-ing that his Christian faith does not permit him to do so, according to court records.
Kamalesan’s petition in the High Court challenged his termination and sought rein-statement.
The federal government opposed the petition. Government attorney told the court that Kama-lesan’s refusal was “only on the ground of his religious beliefs” and it “has an adverse effect on the morale and motivation of the troops he commands.”
The court ruled Kamalesan’s “persistent refusal to fully parti-cipate in weekly regimental reli-gious parades, despite extensive counseling and opportunities for compliance, justified the action taken by the respondent.”
Kamalesan said that several Christian troop leaders, including himself, have led and continue to lead troops to the regiment’s Hindu temples, and conduct prayers, offerings, and the Arati as ritual worship inside the inner-most temple. “Without the army uniform, I may be a Catholic. But with the uniform, I’m part of my regiment and will follow the disciplines of the force. Our regimental identity is above reli-gion, caste, and community,” he told on June 2.

Indian Christians have sought President Droupadi Murmu’s intervention to end the rising religious persecution against them by hardline Hindu groups in many parts of the country. Christians of different denominations, united under the banner of the national front Rashtriya Christian Morcha, handed a memorandum addressed to Murmu to the district collector of Jabalpur in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh on June 9. Atul Joseph, who led the 50-member delegation, said the top district official assured them that he would forward their petition to the president for her consideration. “We were forced to write to the honorable president as Christians continue to face violent attacks and false cases of conversion in different parts of the country daily,” Joseph told on June 10. The four-page memorandum stated that Christians, who comprise 2.3 percent of India’s 1.4 billion people, “always upheld the constitutional values” and “secular and democratic principles” of the country. “Despite this right-wing Hindu groups constantly targeted us to the extent that in many states, even holding a routine prayer meeting has become troublesome for us,” it said. The memorandum further highlighted the plight of Christians of Dalit (former untouchables) and indigenous origins, saying, “they have been discriminated against and forced to bear increasing hostilities and violence.” The Christians also sought Murmu’s intervention in stopping the gross misuse of anti-conversion laws in many states, such as Uttar Pradesh in northern India, and central states like Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. Christian churches and prayer gatherings are targeted by hardline Hindu mobs by wrongly labelling them as religious conversion activities.

A leading Indian churchman has called for a full and definitive agreement between India and Pakistan for lasting peace following the latest clashed involving the two nations, says a report. “It is time to put an end to ancient resentments,” Cardinal Oswald Gracias told the Vatican’s Fides news agency. “Ours is a heartfelt appeal for peace in Kashmir. We hope for a full and definitive agreement, which would be important not only for India and Pakistan but for peace in the world,” said the retired archbishop of Bombay (Mumbai), capital of Maharashtra state in western India. India and Pakistan agreed a ceasefire on May 10 following four days of retaliatory attacks. The conflict was triggered by a terrorist attack in the disputed Kashmir region on April 22 that left 26 civilians dead, mostly Indian tourists. New Delhi blamed Islamabad for harboring terrorist groups and orchestrating the attack, which Pakistan denied. The resulting conflict between the nuclear-armed rivals left about 70 people dead. Muslim-majority Kashmir became part of India following an agreement between its Hindu maharaja and the Indian government after the British partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. Both India and Pakistan claim the territory in full and have fought two wars over the region. It is now divided into Indian-administered and Pakistani-administered territories separated by what is known as the Line of Control. Pope Leo XIV welcomed the ceasefire on May 11 and hoped that “a lasting accord may soon be reached.” Cardinal Gracias echoed the call and said that “it is time for peace.”

The Vatican has declared Eastern Rite Indian Bishop Matthew Makil a venerable, bringing him one step closer to canonization. Bishop Makil (1851–1914), the first vicar apostolic of Kottayam vicariate in south-ern India, led the Syro-Malabar Church almost a decade before the Vatican established the Church’s hierarchy in 1923. Pope Leo XIV, on May 22, signed the decree declaring him venerable along with two other Servants of God – Sister Inés Arango Velá-squez and Bishop Alejandro La-baka Ugarte, reported the Vatican News. Makil, born in Manjoor village in Kerala state, is also the founder of the Sisters of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The launch of the women’s congregation signifies his social commitment, as he founded it in 1892 for the education of girls, just three years after becoming the Vicar General of Kottayam in 1889. His vibrant pastoral ministry led him to become the Apostolic Vicar of Changana-cherry in 1896. The Syro-Malabar Church was experiencing histo-rically turbulent times as his leadership role emerged a few years after Pope Leo XIII sepa-rated the Syro-Malabar Church from the Portuguese-led Latin hierarchy in the area in 1887. Although Pope Leo XIII esta-blished the Apostolic Vicariates of Trissur and Kottayam for Syro-Malabar Catholics, French Jesuit Bishop Charles Lavigne was appointed as the head of the Kottayam vicariate.
In 1889, Bishop Lavigne appointed Makil as the vicar general for the Knanaya Christian community, which had been clamouring for a separate identity and diocese. Makil steered clear of controversies and sought ways to resolve the conflicts arising from the differences between the two factions of Syro-Malabar Catholics – the “northerners,” who traced their faith to Saint Thomas the Apostle, and the “southerners” Knanaya commu-nity, which considered themselves the successors of migrant Meso-potamian traders. Makil visited Pope Pius X at the Vatican and submitted a joint memorandum signed by the three other apostolic vicars to establish the Apostolic Vicariate of Kottayam dedicated exclusively for the southerners.
In 1911, when a new Vicariate Apostolic of Kottayam was constituted exclusively for the southerners – the Knanaya Catholics who practice endogamy – Makil was transferred to Kottayam as its first Vicar Apostolic.
The status of a venerable is the step prior to beatification, the last one before canonization, which declares a Catholic’s life as worthy for other Catholics to emulate in practicing their faith.
The Church, by declaring Makil a “venerable,” officially acknowledges that he lived a life of heroic virtue and is worthy to be considered for beatification.