A fire has burnt down a village Church in India’s north-eastern Assam state amid right-wing Hindu group’s campaigns against Christian missionaries, but police are yet to confirm if it was an arson attack or an accident.
Tezpur diocesan Father Ambrose Musahary told that the church of his St. Teresa parish in Jhakar Gao village had been “burnt down to ashes.” The five-decade-old church in the Udalguri district has about 160 Catholic families, “most of them coming from Indigenous backgrounds,” the priest said.
The priest added that Hindus and Christians in the village lived in peace, and “we never had any disturbance or hatred among different communities.”
Bishop Michael Akasius Toppo of Tezpur, who visited the spot on Jan. 17, told that police and Church officials “are not sure whether someone deliberately set the church on fire or it was an accident.” “We have no evidence” for either case and “we can say anything about it” only after the police investigation is completed, the bishop said.
The fire happened three days after the parish celebrated the first Mass of two newly ordain-ed diocesan priests who belong to the parish’s indigenous families.
A Family Where Faith Inspired Six Sisters to Religious Life
In the mist-covered hills of Venappara in Kerala, the Kallidukkil family became a remarkable witness to faith and vocation. Thomas and Thresiamma Kallidukkil raised their
