Christians in India are concerned after a federal government report recorded a decline in the fertility rate among the community leading to a further reduction in their population. According to the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS) report, the total fertility rate (TFR) among Christians declined to 1.88 percent in 2019-21 from 2.87 percent in 1992-93. Christians make up 2.3 percent of the more than 1.3 billion population, according to the 2011 national census, but the community fears that their population will decline further.
Archbishop Sebastian Kallupura of Patna in Bihar state in eastern India said many families are going nuclear. “We generally see a trend among the educated people from the community to opt for small families, unlike in the past when larger families were the norm,” Archbishop Kallupura, chairman of the family commission of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI), told. “The high cost of living coupled with lack proper employment has forced families to restrict their number of children.”

Tribal people including Christi-ans in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh are up in arms about attempts by Hindu nationalist forces to rob them of reservation benefits. Reservations form a system of affirmative action in India that provides representation in education, employment and politics for historically disadvantaged groups such as tribal people, Dalits and backward cast-es. Tribal people in Chhattisgarh are alarmed by Janjati Suraksha Manch (JSM) or tribal protection forum, which is affiliated with the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), undertaking a concerted campaign to remove tribal Christians and Muslims from the list of reservation beneficiaries.
Demands to delist Christians and Muslims have been raised for the past 15 years or so but Hindu nationalists start-ed holding rallies in support of the move for the first time in May.”
The demand and the public rallies in support of it are motivated by political gains,” Bishop Emmanuel Kerketta of Jashpur told on June 15
There is currently no religious bar to tribal people being eligible for government-run welfare schemes, but Christian leaders fear the campaign, if successful, could deny the faithful their constitutional right.

Pope Francis has invited the youth of the Syro-Malabar Church to follow Jesus by saying “yes” to a life of service and responsibility, and “no” to one of superficiality and dissipation.
The Pope said on June 18 during a meeting with the pilgrims of the “Syro-Malabar Youth Leaders Conference.
The Syro-Malabar Catholic Church is one of the two Eastern Catholic autonomous (sui iuris) Churches in India, in full communion with the Pope, the other one being the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. The Syro-Malabar is the third largest sui juris Church of the Catholic Church, and the second largest Eastern Catholic Church after the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, with some 4.25 million faithful worldwide.
Over half of them live in the Indian state of Kerala, where the Church dates back to the first century following the preaching of Saint Thomas the Apostle and where the Church is still based.

June appears to be the cruelest month for India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), although the former seems unfazed if his silence is any indicator.
The Islamic world is furious with a BJP spokesperson’s re-marks on the Prophet Muhammad while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also called out India for rising attacks on religious minorities.
What the world and the nation aren’t aware of is the challenge facing the Indian prime minister on his home turf.
The Patidars or Patels, who form the backbone of the BJP’s political support base in Modi’s home state of Gujarat in we-stern India, are furious with him.
The members of this financially and politically influential agrarian caste who claim to have descended from Lord Ram are also staunch followers of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, a former federal home minister credited with securing India’s unity in the aftermath of independence preceded by a bloody partition.
The sardar or chieftain of the Patel peasants thus came to be known as India’s “Iron Man” and his name was given to a cricket stadium originally built on the outskirts of Gujarat’s principal city of Ahmadabad in 1982.

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on June 22 met Pope Francis in the Vatican.
“It has been an absolute pleasure meeting His Holiness Pope Francis in Vatican City. Thanked him for the warm audience and wished him good health and long life,” Patnaik said on his social media post.

The XIth General Chapter of the Society of St Paul held at Ariccia, Italy, has elected Fr Domenico Soliman (56 years) as the next Superior General of the Congregation, and the 8th successor to Blessed James Alberione, its Founder and first Superior General. Fr Soliman was elected to the highest office of the Congregation on Wednesday, June 15, 2022.

Caritas India, the social development arm of the Catholic bishops in India, has been awarded for its excellent work in humanitarian aid and disaster risk reduction, community health, climate-adaptive agriculture and food sovereignty.

An Italian missionary who dedicated herself to working with street children in Haiti for more than 20 years, was murdered.
Sister Luisa Dell’Orto, a Little Sister of the Gospel of Saint Charles de Foucauld, was shot during a robbery attempt on June 25.