Benny D’Souza remembers good past times at Christmas when he enjoyed a week of sumptuous meals and quality time in India’s western Pune city with a local Christian Mascarenhas family that traces its roots to Portuguese missionaries.
“We were poor and the parish organized that I have lunch and spend the evening with the Mascarenhas family, and come home for the night,” said D’Souza, 55, father of a son and daughter.
“The daily visits for a week made me feel on top of the world.”
The help came as part of the Small Christian Community (SCC) activities of the Immaculate Conception Church in Poona Diocese. Poona is the former name of Pune.
The growth of such communities across India helps narrow a rich-poor divide, and caste-based discrimination, in hundreds of village parishes, a group of Indian bishops recently explained.
For example, Archbishop Anil Joseph Couto of Delhi noted that in Poona Diocese rich and influential people mingle with others who are poor and not so well educated.
Archbishop Couto was among 41 bishops and four archbishops, who met on Sept. 17-20 for a bishops’ colloquium on Small Christian Communities. The theme was: ‘Bishops are builders of communities to re-vitalize the Church.’
The bishops met and interacted with families and various groups in several parishes of the diocese.
