Theodore Kiro held 13-month-old Navya on her return to his family after they were separated for a week. The crying baby happily clung to Kiro, whom she knows as her grandfather.

Navya is one of the four babies whose fate became entangled in the recent child trafficking scandal broke at Rachi’s Nirmal Hriday (Tender Heart) home, run by the Missionaries of Charity. A five-member district child welfare committee decided it was not fair for the foster mother and the child to be separated for long and ruled they should be united conditiona-lly. The welfare committee asked the foster parents to take the child before the committee every week and keep it informed of the child’s schedule.

“The child and the mother were in trauma after separation, so the committee members decided compassionately to unite them. But this status has been fixed for the next two months only,” said Kiro, a local political leader using his clout to prepare legal papers for adoption of the toddler. Navya was brought to their home in Ranchi just after her birth and was reclaimed by the child welfare committee as one of the babies who allegedly was sold illegally by an employee of the Missionaries of Charity home.

Though the parents confess that there was no exchange of money yet, the officers are investigating the process of adoption without proper paperwork. This makes Anuka Tigga, another adoptive mother of a 4-year-old, jittery.

The Ranchi police (in Jharkhand) have arrested an employee of a hospital run by the Missiona-ries of Charity, the order founded by Mother Teresa, and placed two nuns in custody on charges of selling children.

The Indian Express reported that the three women took newborns from single mothers and then sold them to other couples. In a note issued by the Generalate [in Calcutta] Sr Mary Prema, superior of the congregation, says: “We are completely shocked by what has happened in our home. It should never have happened.”

The arrest is happened. Shyamanand Madal, head of the Kotwali police station, reports that a case has been opened against Anima Indwar (the employee) and the two nuns according to section 370 of the Indian Penal Code [which punishes those who traffick human beings, ed. ]. Then he adds that “clear evidence was collected against one of the nuns, who could be arrested soon.”

Suspicious, the social workers questioned the nuns: at the end one of them said that the child was taken away by his mother after she was discharged from the structure. “We contacted the woman – continued Tiwari – who instead told us that the child was not with her.

Several Christian families have been assaulted and expelled from their village by local extremists for refusing to renounce their faith, drawing protest from an American group who says the attack violates the families’ rights under Indian law. “We here at International Christian Concern are deeply concerned to see that 10 Christian families have been beaten and displaced for merely exercising their religious freedom rights,” William Stark, regional manager at International Christian Concern, said July 3.

International Christian Concern, a non-denominational Christian NGO based in the U.S., reports that 10 Christian families in the eastern Indian State of Jharkhand have been driven from their homes for refusing to renounce their faith.

On June 5 the ten Christian families from Pahli village in Latehar district were summoned to a meeting with local radicals. The radicals told them to renounce their faith or leave. After the families refused, they were beaten and driven from their village.

Reclaiming the charism and spirituality has to be a top priority if religious congregations in India have to survive, says Montfort Brother Paul Raj. Addressing a gathering of the local unit of the Conference of Religious India (CRI) in Bangalore on July 1, the Brother said that equally important is the creation of new apostolate and promotion of cultural formation in the congregations. Some 500 sisters, priests and brothers attended the gathering and a local CRI general body that followed.

Paul Raj is a former director and principal of Vidya Deep College of Theology in Bangalore. He also served as the Congregation of the Montfort Brothers of St Gabriel’s International executive secretary for the Desk on Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation in Rome.

Quoting French Jesuit Ray-mond Hostie, the Montfort Brother noted that the religious congregations go through different stages, such as foundation, consolidation, expansion, growth, stabilization, dissatisfaction, decline and death. Several congregations in the west are going through difficult transitions and many of them are declining or dying or already dead, he said.

Wearing her veil, congrega-tion’s uniform and sporting a calm smile, Sr Linet Antony SKD would match anyone’s concept of a Christian nun.

But once the Kannur native gets on to the stage and starts singing, the listeners can’t help not being pleasantly surprised. For, she can sign a Vathapi Ganapathi with as much ease as she can belt out a choir song.

The 37-year-old nun, who is a faculty at Chetana Sangeeth Natya Academy in Thrissur, is probably the only professional Carnatic musician of the State from her community. Sister Linet, who did her arangettam way back in 2011, has performed on stages both in Kerala and outside, in the past few years.

As she speaks about her tryst with Carnatic music, Sr Linet remembers how music was always a part of her life, since childhood.

She remembers, “I used to be active in the music circles of church and could also play a keyboard. Moreover, everybody in my family loved music and could sing. My sister and brother were also getting trained in Carnatic music. So, even before I went for my music studies, I was familiar with the various stages like saptha swaras, varisakal, geetham and the like in Carnatic music.”

Assumption nun Rekha Chennattu, the first Asian elected to head the global Paris based congregation, says her priority will be to serve people on the margins of society.

Sister Chennattu, an Indian, was elected superior general of the international congregation of the Religious of the Assumption on July 5 at the General Chapter held in Lourdes, France. “It was not my choice and so I believe that it was God’s choice,” said Sister Chennattu, professor of biblical studies and a participant at the Synod of Bishops on New Evangelization at the Vatican.

Focusing on neglected people would be the “identity mark” of the congregation during the next six years of her appointment, Sister Chennattu told ucanews.com.

“All throughout my life, I found God’s choices for me have always been better than mine,” the nun said.

She is part of the Office of Theological Concerns of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences and an associate faculty member at Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth, which is a pontifical institute of philosophy and religion based in Pune, India.

The Assumption congregation was founded in 1839 in France by St Marie-Eugenie of Jesus and now has sisters from more than 40 countries serving in 33 nations of the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe. In India, they have communities in the States of Kerala, Maharashtra, Bihar and Jharkhand.

Christian leaders claim that India’s Jharkhand State aims to side-line poor indigenous people who have converted to Christianity.

The state’s legal officers on June 21 gave expert advice to the government that indigenous people who have converted to Christianity have lost their status to merit benefits that the Indian constitution guarantees for the social advancement of indigenous people. The Jharkhand government seems determined to end reservation benefits for those tribal people who have converted to Christianity or other religions, a newspaper says.

Benefits such as job quotas, places in educational institutions and financial assistance for education are reserved for indigenous people following traditional religions. Conversion to Christianity makes them ineligible, the experts told the government, according to local Hindi newspapers.

The move by the state government, run by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), violates the principles of equality and freedom of religion, Christian leaders say.

“The constitution allowed such benefits for the socioeconomic uplift of these poor people. Their faith was not a criterion for this,” said Bishop Vincent Barwa of Simdega, chairman of the Indian bishops’ office for indigenous people.

Religion will become the basis to discriminate against people suffering disadvantages, the bishop said. It also sends a clear message that one should not change religion to Christianity, or change only to Hinduism, if one wants to enjoy state benefits, he said.

The hidden agenda is to target Christians because the government considers Christians the biggest threat as many are well educated and have begun questioning policies and programs, the Oraon tribal bishop said.
(See Focus)

A Catholic priest is telling the British House of Lords of the benefits of yoga to mark International Yoga Day 2018 on June 21. Fr Joe Pereira told AsiaNews that he has been practicing Iyengar Yoga for 50 years, adding that his Kripa Foundation has used it “to help in the rehabilitation of people with alcohol and drug problems.

“The Kripa Foundation offers an intense program of yoga and meditation designed especially for people who undergo treatments and recovery sessions [from drug addiction].”

The Indian priest says that yoga has “the power to help us get in touch with the true inner self and to transcend the world of Prakriti [physical matter] and of materialism and to operate from a level of awareness which brings us to our essential ‘uniqueness’.”

“I will work to strengthen everyone’s faith,” said Msgr Felix Toppo, whom Pope Francis appointed on June 24 as the new Archbishop of Ranchi, Jharkhand, replacing Msgr Telesphore P. Toppo, who resigned after 34 years at the head of the archdiocese.

“In Jharkhand the faith of Catholics and Christians in general is very strong,” Msgr Toppo said about the pastoral work that awaits him. “I will work for the spiritual care of the population, to improve their living conditions and, as much as possible, strengthen faith even more.” For Msgr Toppo, “it’s still early to say what I’ll actually do. It will depend on the needs of the population. Of course, I want to boost the right practice of faith, support children education, work with young people without neglecting adults. We will continue the spiritual preparation and the catechesis.”