Catholic bishops in southern India’s Kerala state have expressed sorrow at the demise of former state chief minister and veteran communist leader V. S. Achuthanandan, who died on July 21, aged 101. “His demise marks the end of an era in the state’s political landscape,” stated the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council (KCBC) in a statement soon after his death. The bishops acknowledged Achuthanandan’s significant contributions to the state, particularly his “unwavering commitment to social justice and the welfare of the marginalized.”
Spanish nun leaves India after training sisters to serve people with leprosy
Leprosy patients and the Catholic nuns who serve them in southern India are upset that a Spanish missionary had to leave the country after her visa was not renewed. Catholic nuns are experiencing increasing hostility and struggling to perform their ministries and continue serving the local population. “We are sad that our mentor and spiritual guide has to leave the country,” said Sr. Marneni Jayamma, superior of the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate congregation’s convent in the Sumanahalli facilities, where Sr. Maria Rosa lived and served as a formator and trainer for the Franciscan nuns and a missionary among people living with leprosy in India. Rosa returned to Spain on May 15, two days after celebrating the golden jubilee of her congregation’s presence in India. Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Susainathan of Bangalore celebrated the jubilee Mass with Rosa and almost 80 Franciscan nuns and sisters from other congregations.
Call to end discrimination against Dalits in Indian parish
Catholics of Dalit origin in a diocese in Tamil Nadu state in southern India have sought the intervention of the Church and civil authorities to end the discriminatory practices against them in their parish. Some 25 of their leaders joined for a day-long hunger strike in front of the Thiruchirappaly district’s headquarters on July 21, alleging their people were being excluded from the annual feast at their St. Mary Magdalene parish Church at Kottapalayam. Most of the parish’s 500 fami-lies come from a Dalit (for-merly considered untouchable) background and are part of the Diocese of Kumbakonam. “We were not allowed to participate in the July 14-22 festivities, which involve pulling decorated chariots on streets in the villages adjacent to the church,” said P. Sandandorai, president of the National Council of Dalit Christian’s Tamil Nadu unit. The chariot procession passes through upper-caste Hindu neighborhoods, but not in the localities where Dalit Catholics live, Sandandorai, a lawyer, told on July 24.
“We are not given equal treatment in our church, not allowed to participate in any activities, not even in the donation drive for the festivities,” he lamented. Sandandorai further alleged that the parish also does not include the Dalit Catholics in the decision-making process. “No parish council was formed as the influential Catholics want to keep out the Dalits,” he added.
Indian court grants bail to 2 nuns in case of abuse at children’s home
A court in India’s Maharashtra state has granted bail to two Catholic nuns and a caretaker of a children’s home, a week after they were arrested for allegedly ill-treating minor girls under their care. “We are relieved that they are out on bail and hope the truth will come out,” Sister Rosaline Rodri-gues, president of the western region of the Conference of Religious India (CRI), told. Sisters Suchita Gaikwad and Alka Salunke of the Sisters of the Cross of Chavanod, along with caretaker Anwelari Bhag-wandas, were arrested in the western state’s Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (formerly Aurangabad) district. The police arrest was based on the complaint of nine girls, who escaped from the nuns-managed Vidyadeep (light of knowledge) Children’s Home.
They complained to the district welfare authorities about a lack of facilities and ill-treatment by the nuns and caretaker. District Court Judge M S Deshpande granted bail on the condition that each of them furnishes a personal bond of 50,000 rupees (approximately US$580) and separate local sureties of the same amount.
The July 14 bail order also stated that the accused must cooperate with the investigation, refrain from tampering with evidence or influencing witne-sses, and seek prior permission of the court before leaving its jurisdiction. It further asked them to report to the local police every Sunday until the police file the chargesheet in the case.
A member of the Sisters of the Cross of Chavanod said this was a straightforward plot hatched to make use of the children to defame our sisters.
Vatican envoy lauds Syro-Malankara church founder during India visit
A top Vatican official, currently visiting India, has exhorted the Eastern rite Syro-Malankara Catholics to emu-late the example of Venerable Archbishop Mar Ivanios, who is known as “tireless apostle for unity.”
Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations, said Venerable Mar Ivanios, who established the Eastern rite Church in 1930, “made immense sacrifices” for Christian unity.
At the July 15th Mass commemorating the 72nd death anniversary of Venerable Ivanios in the Church’s base in Kerala state, Gallagher asked Catholics to emulate the vene-rable one who sought “holiness in everyday life, and to serve others selflessly.”
Indian state proposes law to deter religious scripture desecration
Church leaders have cautiously welcomed a pro-posed law prescribing harsh punishment for acts of sacri-lege against holy scriptures in the predominantly-Sikh state of Punjab in northern India. The Punjab Prevention of Offences Against Holy Scriptures Bill, 2025, a first of its kind in the country, was tabled in the state legislative assembly on July 14 after being cleared in a meeting of the council of ministers chaired by Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann. The bill prescribes “a minimum of 10 years’ imprison-ment, extendable to life im-prisonment” for acts of sacrilege against any holy scripture, which are on the rise in the state, particularly against the Sikh holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib, local media reports said. “The proposed bill has come at the right time, as several cases involving sacrilege of religious scriptures were reported lately,” said Father Daniel Gill, vicar-general of Jalandhar diocese. He hoped the bill would soon pass in the state assembly and help the govt to keep a check on incidents of sacrilege.
Catholic nuns’ arrest over ‘false’ charges rocks Indian parliament
The arrest and jailing of two Catholic nuns on false charges of human trafficking and conversion has rocked the Indian parliament, with opposition members seeking their immediate release. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who is the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha (upper house), on July 28 called the arrests an example of “BJP-RSS mob rule.” He was referring to the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and its parent body, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (national volunteer corps), by their acronyms. Sisters Vandana Francis and Preeti Mary, who are members of Assisi Sisters of Mary Immaculate (ASMI), a Franciscan congregation of the Syro- Malabar Church, were arrested on July 25 by the Railway Police at Durg railway station in central Chhattisgarh state. Chhattisgarh is a BJP-ruled state, and its chief minister, Vishnu Deo Sai, defended the action, terming it a serious matter of “human trafficking under the guise of religious conversion.” He asserted that the law would take its own course. However, Rahul Gandhi alleged “systematic persecution of minorities” and a “dangerous pattern” of targeting individuals for their faith. “Religious freedom is a constitutional right,” he asserted. Sisters Francis and Mary had gone to Durg railway station to pick up three young women, aged between 19 and 22, to be employed as domestic help in three convents in the state. As the nuns and the girls were showing their tickets to a railway official, a mob arrived and surrounded them, said Father Josh Abraham from Raipur archdiocese, based in the state’s capital.
“The members of the mob claimed to belong to Bajrang Dal, a militant Hindu group, and accused the nuns of forcibly taking away the girls for religious conversion,” the priest, who is a lawyer and gathered details of the incident, told on July 28. The railway police arrived and took away the nuns, the girls, and a boy who accompanied them for the journey from their homes to Durg.
“The police later took the three girls to a shelter home. The nuns and the boy were charged with human trafficking and religious conversion, and remanded in custody for 14 days by a local court,” Abraham said. The priest-lawyer said the police had said they would release the nuns and the boy in the evening, but instead jailed them. The girls are members of the Church of South India (CSI), a union of Protestant denominations. One of them allegedly told the police that she was taken to Durg without her consent. “This could have been done by pressuring the girl, which led to totally false charges being laid against the nuns,” Abraham alleged.
He said the nuns’ bail applications were filed on July 28 and hoped they would be released soon, as the “charges against them are totally false and baseless.” Both the nuns are natives of Kerala, and their arrest and jailing caused a stir in the southern state. Parliamentarians belonging to the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) and the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) from Kerala staged a protest in the parliament complex, waving placards that read “Stop attacks on minorities.” Federal Minister of State for Minority Affairs George Kurian, who is also from Kerala, refused to take a clear stand, saying “the matter was subjudiced.”
Indian church leaders slam ‘mercy plea’ for missionary killer
Christian leaders and activists have criticized a petition seeking a presidential pardon for Rabindra Kumar Pal, known as Dara Singh, the main convict in the 1999 murder of Australian missi-onary Graham Staines and his two children. “A plea for mercy must never come at the expense of truth or the suffering of victims,” Father Ajay Singh, a rights activist who has been following the case, told on July 24.
Mahendra Hembram, the only other convict imprisoned in the same case, submitted the mercy petition to President Droupadi Murmu on July 15. Hembram himself was released last April for his “good behaviour” after spending 25 years in prison. The mercy petition “cannot be morally justified” unless the murderer shows “sincere repentance” and acknowledges “the gravity of the crime,” said the priest from the Archdiocese of Cuttack–Bhubaneswar in Eastern Odisha state.
However, neither Hembram nor the prime convict has expressed any sense of “remorse” for burning to death the missionary and his two sons, aged 6 and 10. A district court initially convicted 13 people, including Dara Singh and Hembram. However, the Orissa High Court acquitted 11 of them. Dara Singh was initially sentenced to death, but it was later commuted to life in prison, the same punishment given to his accomplice Hembram.
Vatican urged to raise India’s anti-Christian violence in talks
Vatican’s Secretary for Re-lations with States, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, met with India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar amid calls to make increasing attacks against Chri-stians a bilateral discussion point. Gallagher, on a week-long visit to India, met Jaishankar in New Delhi on July 17, the third day after arriving, following some church functions and meetings with church officials. Jaishankar, in a social media post, said he was “pleased” to meet the Vatican official. It was “a good conver-sation about the importance of faith, and the need for dialogue and diplomacy to address conflicts,” the post said. Neither the Vatican nor India issued any public statements on the issues the officials discussed. Church officials in India also refused to comment on the “conflicts” Jaishankar mentioned in his post.
However, the archbishop was asked to take up the increasing Hindu attacks against Christians in bilateral dialogues with Indian officials in a memorandum that an ecumenical Christian group submitted. The violence against Christians “should be taken up in bilateral human rights dialogues with India, specifically highligh-ting the targeted use of anti-con-version laws on religious minori-ties,” said the memorandum United Christian Forum (UCF) submitted to Gallagher. The Vatican’s engagement should not be limited to the federal govern-ment but also include state govern-ments that “aggressively enforce” anti-conversion laws, it said.
Archbishop Anil Joseph Couto of Delhi submitted the memora-ndum on behalf of the group during a meeting with Gallagher at the Vatican Nunciature in New Delhi on July 17. The memoran-dum wanted the Vatican to issue official statements “condemning the rising incidents of violence and systemic discrimination against Christians in India.”
It also wanted the Vatican to take steps to “ensure judicial transparency” in trials under anti-conversion laws and to have “monitoring and fact-finding missions” to assess ground realities, particularly in states witnessing recurring violence. “Anti-Christian violence has been consistently increasing,” A. C. Michael, convenor of the ecumenical forum, told UCA News, pointing to the numbers in the memorandum. The forum, which documents violence targeted at Christians in the country, recorded 834 incidents in 2024, from 734 incidents in 2023.
Uproar over Indian Hindu temple’s suspension of Christian employees
Church leaders have criticized the authorities of one of India’s most famous Hindu temples for suspending four employees because of their Christian faith. The managers of the Sri Venkates-wara temple, popularly known as the Tirupati temple, in southern Andhra Pradesh state, announced on July 19 the suspension of employees for “following other religions.” The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), a trust managed under the state govern-ment, manages the temple, billed as India’s most popular and richest.
“The employees were reportedly following the Christian faith, which violates the code of conduct,” of the temples, TTD said in a statement posted on social media. The decision was taken following a vigilance report and review of supporting evidence, the trust said. The temple report-edly owns assets and properties worth about US$30 billion, making it one of the richest in the world. The TTD’s administrative board manages 12 temples and sub-shrines, employing some 14,000 people. Father Robinson Rodri-gues, public relations officer of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), termed the deci-sion a violation of constitutional rights.