For the second time in a week, Kerala’s ruling CPI-M said that the government has no plans to implement the Church Act, with now Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan making the assurance to a group of bishops from various Christian denominations who met him.

The proposed Act aims to put in place a Devasom-like structure of administration over churches in the state and make heads of different churches accountable to the state government.

The draft act was put online by Law Reforms Commission chairman, Justice (retd) K.T. Thomas, a former Supreme Court judge, to solicit public opinion but sparked off protests from various Christian denominations. Vijayan’s office issued a statement to the media which said that his government has no plans at all to implement the Act.

“This Commission before doing this never ever consulted with the Kerala government. We categorically wish to inform all concerned, this government has no plans to implement the Church Act at all,” it read.

During the previous LDF tenure (2006-11), the then Law Reforms Commission had come up with a similar Act but the government never acted upon it, it added.

On March 1, CPI-M state Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan told the media that the Left government was not going forward with the Act, a day after the Inter-Church Council got together near Kottayam to protest the proposed move.

Jesuit Superior General Father Arturo Sosa, who is on a visit to India, stressed the urgency of reconciliation with God, humanity and nature during his Ash Wednesday Mass in Pune.

“We need urgently to reconcile ourselves with God, fellow human beings and with nature,” Father Sosa said on March 6 while celebrating the Eucharist on the first day of the season of Lent at Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth (JDV) seminary.

Father Sosa maintained that the season of Lent is a gift of joy.

Two words here are striking: gift and joy. Lent is God’s gift to us, and it brings us great joy. The joy of returning to God — the God who fills us with joy, restores us and reconciles us with Himself, with all His children, and with all His creatures, he said. He added that Jesus pro-poses very precise and practical steps to realize this reconciliation. The three steps are: prayer, fasting and alms-giving.”

The global head of Jesuits, also the JDV Chancellor, wanted the 1,100 staff and students of the seminary to engage with the three steps and “strive for the triple reconciliation — with God, with others, and with nature.”

Twenty one years after four nuns were raped by 26 persons in the Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh, a 45-year-old absconding accused in the case has been nabbed, police said on March 5.

Kalu Limji was arrested from Aamba village in the district the previous day, a police official said.

In September 1998, the accused, mostly tribals, raped the nuns at the Priti Sharan Mission at Naupara village in the predominantly tribal district. Nauapara is 25 km from the district head-quarters.

Of the 26 accused, 24 were arrested immediately after the incident, police said. Nine were awarded life imprisonment by a local court, while 13 others were acquitted.

Limji was one of the two accused absconding. He “was arrested at Aamba village under Kalidevi police station after a tip-off,” Jhabua district Superintendent of Police Vineet Jain told reporters.

Limji earlier worked as a labourer in neighbouring Gujarat, the police official said.

Women in a remote village in Arunachal Pradesh marked the International Women’s Day by praying for the release of jailed Missionaries of Charity nun in Jharkhand State. “We know that Sister Concelia (Baxla) is inno-cent. She is in jail for false case by people with vested interests to show the Church in poor light,” said Likro Mossang, president of the Catholic Women of East Arunachal Pradesh. “We join with her and scores of other women who languish in jail because of false cases. This is our best way to celebrate our women’s day this year,” she told the gathering at Neotan village in Changlang district of the northeastern Indian state.

A Catholic bishop was reportedly hospitalized in Tamil Nadu, southern India, after a group of Catholics attacked him over a land dispute. Police in Marthandam in Kannyakumari district have registered a case against 58 people for attacking Bishop Jerome Dhas Varuvel of Kuzhithurai and a security guard, Tamil newspaper the Daily Thanti reported on March 11. The attack took place the previous day at the bishop’s residence in Unnamalaikadai near Marthandam some 45 km southeast of Thiruvananthapuram, the Kerala State capital, which is the nearest major city.

Weeks after Pope Francis’ open admission of the issue of clergy abuse of nuns, reaction to his remarks remains muted among Catholics in India, where a progressive group of religious had raised the problem three years ago.

They urge the Pope not to stop with identifying the problem but to act firmly against abusers, especially in India, where a bishop has been accused of rape by a former superior general of a diocesan congregation.

“Pope Francis gives some hope, but nothing is percolating down,” lamented Holy Spirit Sr Julie George, one of the 75 signatories of a “letter of concern” the Forum of Religious for Justice and Peace sent to all bishops and major superiors in India in February 2016.

The letter brought to light for the first time in India the prevalence of sexual violence against religious women by priests. It bemoaned that the problem went unaddressed, allowing its perpetrators to go unpunished. “This cannot be tolerated anymore,” asserted the forum, which said it was forced to write the letter as its analysis of current challenges to religious life revealed issues that needed urgent attention by church leaders.

However, the letter seems to have had little impact in the past three years. The forum and other groups such as Save Our Sisters Action Council allege that Indian church leaders have ignored the nun’s complaints against Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jalandhar.

George, a lawyer, accuses the Indian bishops of ignoring the Pope’s call to show compassion to the victims of clergy abuse. “Instead, they side with the accused and even try to silence every voice of dissent against them,” she told Global Sisters Report.

The church leaders threaten those supporting the alleged rape victim with defamation suits and other tactics, George alleged, referring to a move by the Syro-Malabar Church mid-February to sue the officials of the Save Our Sisters Action Council who had organized a sit-in last September demanding Mulakkal’s arrest. Mulakkal has denied the accusations.

Fr Paul Thelakat, editor of Sathyadeepam (Light of Truth), a church weekly, agrees with the Pope that the recent scandals are God’s plan to cleanse the church.

“I am not afraid of this vulnerability bringing shame to our honour and respect. Look at the Bible. It tells stories of sin and salvation. Every scandal is converted to instance of God’s grace,” Thelakat told.

Religious and ethnic minorities in India continue to face violence at the hands of Hindu groups that support the federal government led by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), according to a new report by Human Rights Watch.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has failed to prevent or credibly investigate growing mob attacks on religious minorities and marginalized communities, said the report released in New Delhi on Feb. 19.

Some critics have even accused Modi of turning India into “a republic of hate.”

The BJP’s political leaders, since forming the federal government in May 2014, “have increasingly used communal rhetoric” that spurred violence from vigilante groups, it said. They have also vowed to protect cows, a revered animal in Hinduism.

“Mob violence by extremist Hindu groups against minority communities, especially Muslims, continued throughout the year amid rumors that they traded or killed cows for beef,” according to the report.

Between May 2015 and December 2018, at least 44 people — 36 of them Muslims — were killed across 12 Indian states. “Over that same period, around 280 people were injured in over 100 different incidents across 20 states,” the report stated.

It said there were 254 documented incidents of crimes targeting religious minorities between January 2009 and October 2018, in which at least 91 people were killed and 579 injured.

About 90 percent of these attacks were reported after the BJP came to power in May 2014, and 66 percent occurred in BJP-run states. Muslims were victims in 62%  of the cases, and Christians in 14 %. These include communal clashes, attacks on interfaith couples and violence related to protecting cows and religious conversions.

“A country’s government must understand that it should take care of the people irrespective of cast, creed or religion,” said Bishop Alex Vadakumthala of Kannur in the southern State of Kerala.

Catholic run schools and colleges from all over Garo Hills on February 20 remained closed as a mark of protest and condemnation against the frequent attacks on Catholic Parishes and institutions, by miscreants in some days ago. The shutdown protest was also aimed at demanding from concerned authorities the immediate arrests of the culprits.

As many as 100 schools and all colleges run by Catholic missionaries in Garo Hills including those under Don Bosco and the Loyola College at William Nagar remained shut on the day to show their unity in condemning the incidents.

Other schools like the Educere School in Williamnagar also closed down for the day to show solidarity. Schools along the road from Dadeng to Phulbari, Rongreng Model School and the Chidekgre Robinus T Sangma School also cooperated with the protest and remained closed.

The annual assembly of the Association of Franciscan Families of India (AFFI) ended on Feb 22 with a yearlong plan to revive the charism of their founder Saint Francis of Assisi. In the four-day event — attended by generals, provincials and other major superiors of Franciscans in India — marked the 800th anniversary of the meeting between St Francis with the Sultan of Egypt.

The Indian Franciscans plan to develop broad based dialogue — with God, with the poorest and with other religions – in the coming year.

The AFFI is a nationwide network of around 50, 000 men and women Religious who follow St Francis and St Clare. They serve society both in India and abroad as missionaries through 164 provinces from 55 religious congregations besides another network of laity under the Order of Secular Franciscans numbering 70,000. They work for the welfare of all, with special charism to be committed to the welfare of the least and the lost, through their apostolate of education, health and social uplift.