A Salesian center in north-eastern India has held a series of training to help improve their employment opportunities.
The Anma Integrated Development Association (AIDA) held the training in five villages, with a focus on mushroom cultivation and food processing. The women were part of self-help groups facilitated by the Don Bosco Campus in Dimapur, the commercial capital of Nagaland state.
The training aimed to pro-vide skills training for unemployed youth and women. Self-help groups are set up to help women have better employment opportunities. Women attended hands-on training and had a chance to meet with different organizations and departments for cross-sharing of information in a real-work environment.
The mushroom cultivation training was held at the Mush-room Farmers’ Club in Bade village. It was supported by the Mushroom Development Foundation of Guwahati, Assam. The food processing training on meat and pickles was held at the Ministry Learning Center.
The 50 participants of the mushroom training were taught about the construction of the mushroom house, preparation of straw, incubation and spawning and casing soil. The 27 participants in the food processing training learned about food quality assurance, quality control, and preservation for meat and pickles.
“Salesian missionaries in India and around the globe provide educational programs for women so they can find employment and become self-sufficient, which aids their families and communities,” said Father Timothy Ploch, interim director of Salesian Missions, the U.S. development arm of the Salesians of Don Bosco.
Catholics Worship Hindu Goddess of Destruction
In a display of unabashed syncretism, significant numbers of Catholics are offering flowers, coconuts, fruits, rice, milk, sweetmeats and incense sticks to the idols of Shantadurga Kunkalikarin, a Hindu deity also known as Durga, the goddess of destruction.
“There is a lot of involvement of Catholics. I would say about 30–40%,” said Wendy Gomes, trustee of the Cuncolim Chieftains Memorial Trust told The Times of India, detailing Catholic participation in the “umbrella” festival of Sontrio (Chatrotsav) held earlier in March.
The devotees carry a red “sacred” umbrella representing the goddess and a dozen white umbrellas for each of the 12 local clans. Dancing while carrying the umbrellas, the red-powder-smeared participants toss handfuls of powder in the air around the goddess Shantadurga’s silver palanquin.
“We have two mothers, one is Shantadurga and the other is Saude Saibinn [Our Lady of Health],” Alister D’Souza, a local Catholic, told the Indian newspaper. The local parish of Our Lady of Health was first built between 1600 and 1604.
The Goan church’s website puts the number of Catholics in the parish of Our Lady of Health at 10,000. The Franciscan Order of Friars Minor and the religious sisters of Maria Bambina are also located in the parish.
Retired superintendent of police, Tony Fernandes, narrates how he has always taken part in the festival as a Catholic: “We were originally Hindus and were converted (to Catholicism), so the belief (in Shantadurga) has always been strong.”
As the deity’s procession stops at designated places along the route, Catholics join Hindus in throwing vermillion powder and rose petals. They rush forward to the idol to make offerings and seek the goddess’ blessing.
In the predominantly Catholic ward of Gotton, where the procession makes a ritual stop, Catholics don’t even store meat in their refrigerators as a mark of respect to the goddess.
Prominent Catholic Neeraj Aguiar from Gotton insists that local Catholics have celebrated the goddess’s arrival since “time immemorial” and “with great pomp.” The Aguiars have even built a special concrete platform to rest the palanquin and allow people to worship the goddess. “It is our belief that Shantadurga Kunkalikarin is the patron of Cuncolim. We have strong faith in that,” says Aguiar. “It’s not about being a Hindu or Catholic. We celebrate this together.”
Actor washes feet of wife, children on Maundy Thursday
A cine actor in the southern Indian state of Kerala has ob-served Maundy Thursday differently: he washed the feet of his wife and five children at home.
A video posted April 7 on YouTube shows Sijoy Varghese kneeling before his wife and children seated on chairs. He washes their feet with water, wipes them with a towel and kisses them while a hymn is played in the backdrop.
The actor starts with his wife and goes to each child, from the eldest to the youngest. At last he washes the feet of the fifth child seated on his wife’s lap.
Varghese’s gesture symbolizes Christ washing the feet of his 12 disciples at the Last Supper. The Church commemorates it on Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday that fell on April 6 this year.
Churches across the world conduct the feet washing ritual during Maundy Thursday Mass.
Pope Francis on April 6 washed the feet of 12 young men and women, inmates at a juvenile prison in Rome, during the Mass of the Lord’s Supper.
The Pope presided over the Mass for more than 80 inmates, family, staff, and guards in the chapel of the Casal del Marmo juvenile detention center on Rome’s outskirts
In an off-the-cuff homily, Pope reflected on the meaning of Christ’s choice to wash the feet of his disciples. “Washing the feet was a habit at that time,” he said. “But who washed the feet? The slaves.”
Kerala government lifts ban on religious services in jails
The Kerala government has allowed Church groups and NGOs to resume religious and counseling services for prisoners in the jails of the southern Indian state.
The government revoked the March 31 order of Kerala Jail Director General of Police Bal-ram Kumar Upadhyay banning these groups from prisons following a meeting of Cardinal Baselios Mar Cleemis, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Council of Kerala (KCBC), with state Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
A press note from KCBC spokesperson Father Jacob Palackapilly says the Jesus Fraternity that functions under the conference will conduct Maundy Thursday services in various jails in Kerala.
The police order had shocked the officials of the Prison Ministry India officials and Jesus Fraternity that have for decades visited jails to conduct religious services for prisoners and to offer them psychological help.
The police order came two days before the Church began the Holy Week rituals this year.
The press note says the chief minister has already informed Upadhyay the government decision.
Cardinal Cleemis on March 5 telephoned the chief minister twice to inform that it was injustice to deny prisoners’ right to seek help for psychological and religious needs.
Father Palackapilly termed as unjust the ban on the voluntary groups that offered help for the prisoners’ inner conversion and religious life.
The priest also said the Jesus Fraternity volunteers’ services have helped the growth of prisoners psychological and spiritual and encouraged them to return to normal life.
Earlier, the Prison Ministry India officials had expressed shock over the police order.
Father Martin Thattil, who coordinates the ministry’s services in Kerala, said they had per-mission to visit jails in the state until July 4.
Father Francis Kodiyan, national director of the Prison Ministry India, regretted the police order issued without assigning any reasons. However, it was applicable only to Kerala, he explained.
Mizoram’s new bishop to unite Barak Valley’s ethnic groups
The newly appointed bishop of Mizoram says his main priority is to bring Barak Valley’s diverse ethnic communities together through focused pastoral care and help them work together overcoming all their challenges.
“I will visit every parish and in the Barrak Valley and work for peace and harmony among the people,” Bishop-elect Joachim Walder told in his first-ever interview after the announcement of his appointment.
Pope Francis on March 30 appointed the 67-year-old priest as the Aizawl diocese’s auxiliary bishop. The diocese covers the entire state of Mizoram and Assam’s Cachar, Hailakandi and Kaimkanj districts in northeastern India.
He is currently the episcopal vicar of Barak Valley region that covers Assam’s three districts.
Bishop Stephen Rotlunanga of Aizawl said the new bishop will address the pressing needs of the Barrak Valley. He recalled the Church’s several attempts to find a definite solution to the valley’s various issues.
The bishop-elect says he is willing to witness Christ in all challenges.
Government asked to frame menstrual guidelines for schools
The Supreme Court of India has asked the federal government to formulate a national model for all states and Union Territories for managing menstrual hygiene for girls in schools.
The apex court on April 10 also termed the issue as of “immense importance” and urged the government to prepare Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, and Justices P S Narasimha and J B Pardiwala appointed secretary of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare as the nodal officer to coordinate with the states and UTs and collect relevant data for formulating a national policy.
“At the present stage, we are of the considered view that Centre should engage with all the stake-holders for implementation of the Uniform National Policy with a leeway for the states and UTs to modify the scheme as per their local needs”, the Bench said.
It directed all the states and UTs to submit their menstrual hygiene management strategies and plans which are being executed either with the help of federal government funds or their own, to the Mission Steering Group of the National Health Mission.
Indian Christians differ with cardinal on persecution
Christian leaders in India have refuted Kerala-based Cardinal George Alencherry’s claim that Christians do not feel insecure under the rule of the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the country.
“Persecution against Christians has drastically increased ever since BJP came to power in the country,” said A.C. Michael, president of the Federation of Catholic Associations of Archdiocese of Delhi
Michael was responding to an interview of Card. Alencherry, the head of the Eastern rite Syro-Malabar Church based in southern Kerala state, published by The New Indian Express, an English daily, on April 9th.
The cardinal who leads more than 5 million Catholics belonging to one of 22 Eastern rite Catholic Church, reportedly said that “Christians do not have any such insecurity now,” under BJP-ruled India and also praised the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
But Michael said the cardinal was wrong. “The fact is that there are continued waves of vile hate speech and targeted violence against the Christian community across the country,” Michael told on April 10.
Michael, a former member of Delhi’s state minority commission, said the atrocities against Christians continue to rise every year since the BJP came to power in 2014.
Quoting figures of the incidents of atrocities against Christians recorded by the United Christian Forum (UCF), he said 597 cases were reported from across the country in 2022 alone.
In 2014, 127 incidents of violence against Christians were reported, which rose to 142 in 2015, 226 in 2016, 248 in 2017, 292 in 2018, 328 in 2019, 279 in 2020, 505 in 2021, and 597 in 2022, according to a UCF report.
“There have been reports of 200 incidents of violence against Christians across India in the first 100 days of 2023 itself,” Michael added.
When Buddhist girl grows up in Mongolian parish
Dashtsend Tsetseg Suren was just three years old when she first walked into the church com-pound in Ulaanbaatar holding the little finger of her Buddhist father, who was one of the workers engaged in constructing the parish church.
During the Easter Vigil this year, the 14-year-old Suren will receive the baptism in the now-completed St. Sophia parish, which is under the Apostolic Prefecture of Ulaanbaatar, based in Mongolia’s capital.
The ninth grader started her catechism classes in 2021 with the guidance of Father Thomas Ro Sang-Min, the parish priest of St. Sophia parish.
“In the initial years, I did not know that this place was a religious place. I was still small and just came to eat something delicious,” she told.
“But now I come here to pray because I know the church is a place to meet with God.”
Her constant contact with the church people for almost a decade in her childhood, which also meant she joined church celebrations and feasts, helped her to become a part of the tiny Catholic community.
Changing political scenario: Jesuits entrust Pakistan mission to Asia-Pacific region
Jesuit superior general Father Arturo Sosa has brought the congregation’s works in Pakistan under its Asia-Pacific region.
The general announced the change of jurisdiction for the mission in Pakistan in a March 28 message to Father Antonio Moreno, president of the Jesuit Conference of Asia-Pacific (JCAP). Father Sosa says the change will come into effect from April 1st.
The change has been done in view of the current political scenario in South Asia. The Pakistan mission has been served by the Jesuits in Sri Lanka, who come under the Conference of South Asia that comprises Ban-gladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
The Jesuits’ global website says Pakistan currently has three Jesuits working in Lahore and five scholastics of Pakistan mi-ssion studying in Indonesia.
The general’s message says, “For several years now, the Paki-stan mission has been entrusted to the Sri Lanka Province. Re-cently however, difficulties have arisen that have made it extremely difficult for Sri Lanka to support the mission in Pakistan. First, geopolitical factors have severely restricted travel from Sri Lanka to Pakistan. Second, an acute shortage of Jesuit personnel in Sri Lanka has come to a point that the Province is no longer able to send Jesuits to Pakistan, now or in the near future.”
Father Sosa agrees that ideally other countries in South Asia should help Pakistan, given their geographical and cultural proxi-mity to Pakistan. “Unfortunately, neither is this possible, given the longstanding hostility between India and Pakistan, and the impossibility of travel between these two countries.”
The Asia-Pacific region will manage the Pakistan mission for three years on an experimental basis, the general says.
“I am confident, Fr. Moreno, that with your leadership and the assistance from the other Major Superiors of Asia Pacific, the mission in Pakistan will be able to carry on with its good work, and receive adequate guidance, sustenance, and support,” says Father Sosa’s letter to the head of the Asia-Pacific region.
Cardinal Bo calls for peace, freedom in Myanmar
Cardinal Charles Bo of Yan-gon has appealed for peace and freedom in Myanmar, where tens of thousands of people, including Christians, continue to bear the brunt of an ongoing civil war between the military and ethnic rebel groups.
“As a nation and as a people, let us roll down the stones of hatred, human suffering and let the message of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, has risen ring in our hearts, in our streets and in every household in this nation,” said Cardinal Bo in an Easter message on April 9.
Just like “the stone was rolled away from Jesus’ tomb, so too can the stones that weigh us down be lifted, allowing us to experience the joy and freedom of new life in Christ.”
The 74-year-old cardinal further said that “let a new Paschal message be heard in this country and let my country rise again into freedom and peace.”
Cardinal Bo, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Myanmar (CBCM), said, “We are people of life, we are people of resurrection.”
Churches, hospitals and schools in Christian strongholds in Kayah, Chin, Karen and Ka-chin states remain prime targets for the junta as thousands of internally displaced persons have taken refuge there, while thou-sands more have fled to neighbouring India and Thailand.