QUESTION: How do you evaluate the leadership of the Indian Church as you are entering the tenth year of your episcopacy

ANSWER: As I enter the tenth year as a bishop, your question ‘how do you evaluate the leadership of the Church in India’ sounds pertinent. My Episcopal Motto is In Fidei Communione. Returning to India after serving in the universal Church for 25 years, I felt the need for renewed ecclesial communion and a common witness in the Christian minority context of India. On the one hand, we are blessed with the presence of three sui iuris Churches, but on the other, we are facing the challenge of fostering a stronger communion among them.
The leadership of the Church in India, I feel, needs to engage more in socio-humanitarian activities, focusing on fundamental human rights and innate human dignity of the person. With the phenomena of migration, services to the people on the move merit greater attention.
And now this question: Has the creation of independent Bishops’ Conferences and two Synods for the Oriental Churches diverted the focus from the national level? Diversification of activities may have a positive outcome, but it carries with it the impression of divisiveness. After this arrangement, there have not been many joint-pastoral letters sign-ed by heads of all the three Churches. Such initiatives may strengthen the out-reach of the Church at the national level.

Archbishop Kuriakose Bharanikulangara
Faridabad-Delhi