The Conference of Religious Women India has trained 46 nuns to create awareness about the grievance redressal cell among its members in northern India.
The Jan 19-21 Training of Trainers program was attended by participants from Andamans, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, North East, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal.
The training at Jesuit’s Dhyan Ashram Retreat Centre in Diamond Harbour Road aimed at educating nuns about the grievance redressal cell launched in December 2022.
The participants observed that information about the cell has not reached most nuns in the country. Lack of knowledge of law, legal process and safeguards have caused unnecessary troubles, they added.
The program also dealt with Pope Francis document, “Motu Proprio,” the Child Protection Policy of the Indian bishops, and PoSH (Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013).
After the training the participants will conduct similar programs for women in their dioceses and the regions and units of Conference of Religious India (CRI).
Threat to controversial Indian ex-bishop’s life alleged
A police case has been re-gistered against a retired Indian archbishop and six priests for posing a threat to the life of a bishop who quit this month.
Police in southern Karnataka state have launched a probe against retired Archbishop Leo Cornelio of Bhopal and six diocesan priests based on a complaint by the younger sister of Bishop Kannikadass Antony William of Mysore who resign-ed on Jan. 13.
Father A. Rohan from M-sore diocese, one of the accused, denied the allegation “as base-less and fabricated.”
“We are ready to join any probe as we do not have anything to hide,” he said.
Some of us were at the forefront to expose the “illegal deeds of Bishop William,” noted Rohan.
In her complaint registered with Narasimharaja Police on January 19, the sister who calls herself “Mary Help of Chri-stians,” said there was a serious threat to the life of her brother from the people she named and sought a probe.
“Except Archbishop Cor-nelio, we all visited the police station on Jan. 23,” Rohan told UCA News on Jan. 26.
The Vatican accepted the resignation of the 58-year-old William, who was accused of murder, rape, and misappro-priation of funds.
The Vatican, however, has made it clear that it accepted the resignation due to “the distressing situation” in the diocese rather than as a puni-shment for the charges leveled against him.
Archbishop Cornelio headed a three-member Vatican panel that examined the charges against William following com-plaints from priests in the diocese.
William’s sister claimed that the accused priests and the archbishop conspired to kill her brother. But William would not file a police complaint as he is a religious person. Thus, she had to do it.
Girls’ band of Salesian school in Tripura makes history
The chief minister and oth-ers in Tripura have applauded a Salesian school in a village in the northeastern Indian state after its girls’ band, formed less than a year ago, made history at national level.
The Girls Brass Band of St Xavier’s Pathaliaghat clinched third place at the National School Band Competition held in New Delhi, January 21-22.
Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha, on his Facebook page, congratulated the band for the achievement. The school, located 36 km south of the state capital of Agartala, set up the band only in April 2023.
The band’s rise to fame “is an incredible story of hard work, discipline, tenacity, and grit,” says principal Salesian Father Babu Stephen.
The band consists of 25 girl students, aged between 11 and 16 and studying in grades 6-8.
Father Stephen confirmed that the students were all “ab-solute beginners, totally new to playing music” before the school launched the brass sand. He said it felt “surreal that even before completing a year of existence, the band has already made a mark at the district, state, zonal, and natio-nal levels.”
To reach the national level competitions the team had to win three earlier stages: the district, the state and the zonal stage. At the zonal stage of the competition, held in Bhubanes-war on December 22.
Indian court wades into inter-faith marriage issue
Religious conversion for marriage must be done only after fully knowing the rituals and customs of the chosen faith, an Indian court has said amid controversies surrounding inter-faith marriages in the South Asian nation.
People who convert to marry should be fully aware of “the consequences of such actions,” A.C Michael, a former member of the state-run Delhi Minority Commission, told on Jan. 23, while reacting to the order by the Delhi High Court in India’s national capital.
High Court judge, Swarana Kanta Sharma, cautioned agai-nst religious conversion for the purpose of marriage on Jan. 19.
It is important to inform the individual with exhaustive infor-mation concerning “doctrines, customs, and practices asso-ciated with the chosen faith,” Sharma observed.
Eleven Indian states, most of them ruled by Modi’s party, have enacted a sweeping anti-conversion law, criminalizing religious conversion with a jail term of up to 10 years.
Petitions are pending in the Supreme Court challenging these anti-conversion laws.
Leading states like Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have criminalized inter-faith marri-ages, especially between Hindu girls with Christian and Muslim boys.
Modi’s party calls Muslim youths marrying Hindu girls “Love Jihad”.
Tribal Christians under pressure to renounce faith in Indian state
A Catholic archbishop in the central Indian Chhattisgarh state has urged his Catholics to remain united in their faith amid claims by a Hindu group of having converted about 250 Christian families to the Hindu religion.
Archbishop Victor Henry Thakur of Raipur told UCA News on Jan 29 that “it is time we should be united and firm in our faith as there will be attempts to divide people in the name of religion, caste and creed.”
A group of some 1,000 people from 251 families, two of them Muslim and the rest Christian, were welcomed into the Hindu religion, reported Organiser, a mouthpiece of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an umbrella forum of pro-Hindu groups.
The conversion ritual involves washing feet with water from the river Ganges. It was reportedly held on Jan. 27 in Raipur, the state capital, in the presence of Pandit Dhirendra Krishna Shastri, a Hindu seer, and Prabal Pratap Singh Judev, state secretary of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“Hindus who had once come under some pressure or greed, and joined other religions or sects… They are now coming back to the Sanatan Dharma [eternal religion],” Judev said.
Judev claimed that “large-scale conversions to Christianity have taken place in Chhattisgarh” and so “the Ghar Wapsi [homecoming] campaign will go forward with all might.”
The homecoming is a nationwide campaign initiated by hardline Hindu groups aligned with the BJP and its ideological parent RSS three decades ago. It aims to convert Christians and Muslims to the Hindu religion, claiming Hinduism is the common home and original religion of all Indians.
Though Christians comprise less than 2 percent of Chhattisgarh’s 30 million population, the Hindu groups claim the actual number is much higher.
Mangaluru’s renowned psychologist awarded Person of Year title
Suman Pinto, an addiction counsellor with nearly three decades of service, was awarded the “Person of the Year, 2023” by the Link Association.
The association, a pioneering group in addiction recovery services in coastal Karnataka, has instituted the award in collaboration with Ecolink Institute of Well-being, global trainers of addiction professionals.
The award was given at a function on January 13 during the association’s annual assembly.
Suman, who did her Masters in Social Work from Roshni Nilaya in 1995, currently works as the director of the addiction treatment center at Dr. Tunga’s Manaswini Hospital, Arkula on the outskirts of Mangaluru.
She started her career as a counselor in addiction recovery at Link Integrated rehabilitation center, who went on to serve in other prestigious institutions in Mangaluru under renowned psychiatrists in Father Mullers hospital, K S Hegde Medical Academy and Prajna Counselling Centre.
With her nearly three decades of experience in addiction therapy and as a counsellor in K S Hegde Medical Academy, Suman has played significant roles in developing the addiction treatment program at the medical college and served the community-based deaddiction camps by the Dharmasthala for over a decade.
Ayodhya’s day: the bishop of Lucknow hopes it will inspire ‘brotherhood’, not political confrontation
India today saw the consecration of the Ram Mandir, the monumental temple in Ayodhya desired by Hindu nationalists at the site where, according to Hindu tradition, the god Ram was born.
“The consecration and inauguration of Ram Temple in Ayodhya is a matter of joy for millions of Ram bhaktas or devotees of Lord Ram,” said Bishop Gerald Mathias of Lucknow, a large city in Uttar Pradesh, speaking to AsiaNews about the event.
“I wish and pray that this ceremony and inauguration will also inaugurate the Ram Rajya that Mahatma Gandhi dreamt of for our beloved country. Ram Rajya or the Kingdom of God is characterised by the divine and human values of justice, peace, love, brotherhood, tolerance, and religious harmony.
The solemn ceremony, which represents a personal triumph for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, comes at the end of the long controversy with Muslims whose Babri mosque stood at the same site, but was razed to the ground by Hindu fundamentalists in 1992 in an event that triggered a spiral of communal violence that cost thousands of deaths.
It was designed to accommodate up to a million people at any one time, with the ambition of exceeding the number of visitors who travel to the Vatican and Makkah every year.
Christians need to rethink mission in ‘new India’
The Ram temple that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated this week is a mile-stone in assessing how his lea-dership is changing India’s con-cept of secularism and democracy with far-reaching implications for its religious minorities, particu-larly Muslims and Christians.
When Modi became prime minister for the first time, leading his pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to a landslide victory in the 2014 parliamentary elect-ions, he was just a chief minister of Gujarat state, one of 28 Indian states.
The victory was powered by the groundwork done for decades by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which is an umbrella forum of Hindu organizations that work to make India a nation of Hindu hegemony.
Since 2014, Modi’s BJP and the RSS have been working with-out losing sight of their prime objective – making India a Hindu nation.
Many believed a second term for the BJP in 2019 after winning more seats in parliament would lead to changing certain features of India’s secular constitution in the push for a Hindu nation. But the Modi administration showed no rush to do that.
“As prime minister, he does not need to change the written constitution as his political oppo-nents keep saying. Looking at it carefully, you will realize Modi has effectively reshaped the coun-try with his governance strategies already,” according to Assam-based social scientist Ashutosh Talukdar.
Mangaluru’s St Aloysius College becomes deemed university
Jesuit managed St. Aloysius College, Mangaluru has received the status of ‘Deemed to be Uni-versity,’, approved by the Univer-sity Grants Commission and the federal Ministry of Education.
“This status gives us several opportunities to further improve the education mission with exce-llence and commitment,” rector Jesuit Father Melwyn Pinto told Matters India.
“This is a unique opportunity to serve the cause of higher edu-cation, including designing sy-llabus, conducting examinations and issuing certificates indepe-ndently,” said the rector, adding they have further plans to expand the college campus and start new courses.
Established in 1880 the college has been a premier higher edu-cational institution in coastal Karnataka with several distinctive achievements. The college was elevated to the autonomous status in 2007 allowing it to make na-tional and global presence.
The UGC and the Ministry of Education granted the university status to the college after studying its proposal on various paramet-ers like physical and digital infra-structure, curricular design, re-search and innovation, graduate outcomes, student attainment le-vels, placements, vision and mi-ssion of the institution and its impact on society.
Earlier, the college was re-peatedly given accreditations by National Assessment and Accre-ditation Council (NAAC) and Na-tional Institutional Ranking Fra-mework (NIRF) and other distin-ctive rankings, Father D’Souza said.
Catholics request security after Hindu radicals assault churches in central India
In the wake of anti-Christian assaults by Hindu activists in central India, which featured the placement of saffron flags on the rooftops of four Protestant churches, local Catholic leaders are calling for increased security ahead of the installation of a new bishop for the local diocese.
The incidents occurred Jan. 21 following Sunday services in the four churches in the Jhabua district of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. According to local media reports, the Hindu militants were celebrating the Jan. 22 consecration of a new temple to the Lord Ram in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh state on a site believed to be the Hindu deity’s birthplace.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who attended the consecration ceremony, has touted the massive new temple as the cornerstone of a Hindu nationalist renaissance in India.
According to local sources, activists energized on the eve of the consecration ceremony climbed on top of the four churches and prayer halls in Jhabua, shouting Jai Shri Ram (“Hail Lord Ram”), a frequent battle cry of Hindu nationalists, and planted saffron flags on the roofs.
Saffron is the color symbolically associated with Hindu identity in India, and some analysts have described the rise to power of right-wing Hindu nationalism under Modi as representing the “saffronization” of India’s democracy.
Three of the churches involved were Pentecostal prayer halls managed by the Shalom Church, while the fourth was part of the Church of South India, one of the country’s largest Protestant denominations. Visuals of the incident showed a group of youths standing on top of a prayer hall, one of them tying a saffron flag with Lord Ram’s image to the holy cross on the building.
Pastor Kidar Singh of the Church of South India told Crux that around 4:00 p.m. on Jan. 21, over 50 right-wing activists gathered near his house, waiving saffron flags and shouting slogans near the church compound.
“They were chanting slogans, such as Ek hi Rashtra, ek hi Ram (‘only one nation, only one Ram’),” he said.