Mumbai: The office of the Archbishop of Bombay has asked Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jalandhar to step down to help unfold an inquiry against him.

It says the reputation of the Church, not just in Kerala but all over the country, is at stake and stepping down would be the right thing to do at this juncture. If the bishop isn’t guilty, he can get back to his position, says Father Niget Barrett, spokesperson for the office of Archbishop of Mumbai.

The priest told a press conference on September 12 that it is only the Vatican which can initiate an inquiry.

“It would be best recommended that the Bishop of Jalandhar steps down and an impartial enquiry, I hope a judicial enquiry, would be done so that it can’t be intimidated using the church mechanisms and enquire into the authenticity claims of both parties and if the Bishop of Jalandhar is guilty, then since it’s a criminal act, the court should take cognizance and act accordingly,” said Father Nigel.

Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Bombay, who is also the head of the Indian Catholic Church, is one of the nine cardinal advisers appointed by the Pope and so is currently in Vatican. The Vatican is currently pondering over the accusations made by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the former chief Vatican diplomat in the United States who has accused the Pope of covering up sexual abuse and giving comfort to a “homosexual current” in the Vatican.

Father Nigel says that before leaving India, he had met Archbishop Oswald but he had not indicated that discussing the current allegation in India was on the card. “Cardinal Oswald has apparently indicated that he would communicate this matter to the authorities concerned and ensure that the processes are in place so that justice is given,” said Father Nigel.

Indian Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas has personally asked federal Home Affairs Minister Rajnath Singh to intervene over the mistreatment of Christians and their organizations in eastern Jharkhand State. Bishop Mascarenhas, secretary general of the Indian Bishops’ Conference, met Singh at his New Delhi office on September 3.

The minister was briefed about difficulties being faced by the Christian minority.

Also present at the meeting was Conard K.Sangma, the Catholic chief minister of Me- ghalaya, a Christian majority state in north-eastern India.

Many Jharkhand Christians believe they are being unfairly targeted by a state government investigation of 88 Christian agencies over foreign donations.

The probes centre on India’s Foreign Contribution Regulation Act requiring that donations be received through a designated bank and spent only for specific social service undertakings.

Despite being surrounded by water, Varghese Mollykutty used to row a boat four kilometres along a narrow canal to a public water source to fetch a few pots of drinkable water for her family.

She and her husband and two children live on a tiny island village, Kuttanad, a unique marshy delta in India’s southern State of Kerala that lies below sea level. Recently floods in the southern Indian state killed more than 350 people since June, peaking in August with 37% excess rainfall in just two-and-a- half months.

Kuttanad, although ringed by water flowing from four perennial rivers, is one of the thirstiest areas in India. Its water is loaded with heavy microbial elements such as coliform bacteria and so is unusable for drinking or any domestic chores.

Most houses in Kuttanad have wells but the water is unusable because it is acidic with mineral content, brackish or unsafe with bacteria.

But Mollykutty now has a method to filter well water to make it suitable for drinking or any household chores.

“It has come as a big boon to us. We don’t have to go kilometres for water anymore. We can get it any time we want by opening a tap. We have only to fill the filtering chamber with water from our well,” she says.

“Recent events in India have damaged the country’s image as a vibrant, plural and successful democracy.” That is the opening line of former Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran’s recent article in which he expresses his “growing concern over the rising polarisation and communalism of our social and political discourse.” Saran pointed out: “We pride ourselves in being the most tolerant of people, celebrating our diversity of faith, culture and tradition, ways of life and language. Diversity thrives on sharing; it becomes poison when it becomes an instrument for separating ‘us’ from ‘them.’ One cannot construct an over-arching Hindu identity on the basis of creating a binary Hindu-Muslim divide.”

Indeed, we do not need a divide. We need instead to find our spiritual common ground. We cannot find that common ground by accident. It must be a consequence created through strong beliefs and a concerted and sustained effort over time. It must be an outcome that over- comes religious, regional and racial boundaries.

How do we reach that ideal state? We begin with where we are, find our shared values, leverage our strengths and then chart a path to where we want to be. As an example of discovering our shared values, let me draw upon the teachings of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, founder of Aligarh Muslim University, and Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, founder of Banaras Hindu University.

These men were visionaries who saw the world not though religious blinders but through an expansive view of what strong and inclusive faiths can do to unite rather than divide us.

Pandit Malviya instructed us: “India is not a country of the Hindus only. It is a country of the Muslims, the Christians and the Parsees too. The country can gain strength and develop itself only when the people of India live in mutual good will and harmony.”

More than 6,700 Catholic nuns are among those helping over a million people taking shelter in relief camps after unprecedented floods ravaged Kerala, a south-western Indian state. “This is the biggest rescue and relief operation the Catholic Church in Kerala has under-taken in its history,” says Fr George Vettikattil, who heads the church’s relief operations in the state.

The church deployed its personnel and opened its institutions across Kerala to help people after rains and massive floods devastated 13 of Kerala’s 14 districts from Aug. 15 through Aug. 20. The rain has stopped in many places and water is now receding.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Aug. 24 told the media that the rains and floods have claimed 417 lives. At least 36 people are still missing. The floods initially displaced nearly 1.3 million people. About 869,000 people were still sheltered in 2,787 relief centres in the state, Vijayan said.

The initial estimated loss was around 200 billion rupees ($2.85 billion).

Vettikattil says all 32 Catholic dioceses in Kerala have joined relief works. As many as 69,821 young people and 99,705 lay volunteers joined 6,737 nuns, 2,891 priests and 354 seminarians to rescue stranded people with the help of government agencies and individually, the priest told Global Sisters Report.

The state also has 2,178 religious priests and 447 brothers who have also joined in helping the flood affected.

“We have formed separate groups comprising priests, nuns and brothers to clean the mud from houses of people living in relief camps,” Sister Modesta, who is a member of the Congregation of Teresian Carmelites, told GSR. “They leave in the morning and work until evening,” she added.

Fishermen in India’s Kerala State are being hailed as heroes for using their traditional wooden boats to rescue men, women and children from swirling flood-waters. “You are like our God,” a woman with folded hands told fishermen who saved her along with another female villager and 30 youngsters trapped in a children’s home in Alappuzha district, an area laced with waterways.

The fishermen, mostly Catholics and Muslims on the Arabian Sea coast, formed their own voluntary rescue service during flash flooding from Aug. 15-18.

While some people were just temporarily isolated by deluges, the lives of others were in serious peril as rising floodwaters submerged homes.

A team led by Raju Thomas from Trivandrum Archdiocese, some 200 kilometers away, carried their boats on lorries to the disaster area in central Kerala.

“We could not see the children’s home,” he said. “We found them after we heard the children screaming.”

Christians in India are marking the 10th anniversary of the brutal violence that Christians of eastern India’s Odisha State faced in 2008, with a Mass in the state capital , Bhubaneswar, on August 25.

Archbishop John Barwa together with the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) are celebrating the 10th anniversary Mass at St Joseph Convent School of Bhubaneswar on the theme, “Reconciliation, Thanksgiving and Grace.”

The anniversary day is dubbed as Kandhamal Day, as most of the violence was perpetrated in the State’s Kandhamal District that comes under the jurisdiction of Cuttack Bhubaneshwar Archdiocese.

However, Arch. Barwa said that many will not be able to come for the Mass in Bhubaneswar on August 25 because of the distance and the current rainy season. But the day will be marked locally at various different levels.

The archbishop told Vatican News that 3 days after the 10th anniversary, Christians are organizing a demonstration to press for their demands.

On August 28 Christians plan to hold a public rally in Phulbani during which they intend to hand a memorandum to the state chief minister Naveen Patnaik, to demand justice and compensation that many victims and their families have been waiting for 10 years now.

But more than all these external manifestations, the archbishop said, Christians are relying on prayers.

It was under late Archbishop Raphael Cheenath that the August 2008 anti-Christian violence flared up in Kandhamal. Archbishop Barwa who took over in February 2011 noted that in the past 10 years the life of the Church in Odisha and Kandhamal has grown and enriched enormously.

“True joy, much akin to a child-like feeling of bliss can only be experienced when we put our faith and trust in God,” said Brian Lobo, a Catholic top manager in Mumbai. AsiaNews spoke to him and his wife Ninette about the World Meeting of Families that opens today in Dublin, Ireland. The couple talked about their experience as Catholic parents and discussed the challenges that families currently face, not only in India but also around the world.

“Our faith has proven pivotal for us as a family and allowed us to accept the cross regardless of its weight and the burden it carries, to take joy not just in the circumstance but take refuge in His plan and design of the cross we carry,” Brian said.

He is the executive vice president and head of Corporate Affairs with one of India’s largest financial services firms with more than 10,000 employees. He is also involved in the pro-life movement in the Archdiocese of Mumbai and has built a tomb dedicated to unborn children.

Ninette has a degree in microbiology but gave up her career to dedicate herself to the family. She heads the Archdiocesan Commission for Human Life (DHLC) and last year represented India at a Bioethics Conference in Thailand. The couple have three children: a boy, Alston (the eldest), and twin daughters Desiree and Danielle. All three live and work abroad.