A seminar on hope-filled nation-building from a synodal church perspective was held in Bhubaneswar capital of the eastern Indian state of Odisha. The May 18 event was organized by the Odisha Region Catholic Religious of India (CRI) in collabo-ration with church leaders and human rights activists. As many as 85 religious clergy, church leaders, advocates, and human rights activists from various dioceses attended. The seminar started with a keynote address by Sr Helen Saldana, the director of Streevani (the voice of women), Pune. She emphasized the significant role that faith communities can play in nation-building by shaping the moral and ethical framework of society. Sister Saldana’s address set the tone for the day’s discussions, highlighting the intersection of faith, ethics, and civic responsibility. The main resource per-sons for the seminar were Jesuit Fr Prakash Louis and civil and human rights activist Dhirendra Panda.
India plans peace steps in strife-torn northeast
The Indian government has drawn up a plan to bring peace to the volatile northeastern region housing the nation’s only three Christian-majority states after the mammoth national elections end early next month. “Peace in the northeastern states, including Manipur, and end of various conflicts, is a priority,” said an official with India’s internal security ministry. People in Myanmar’s Christian-majority Chin state have family relations with people in the Christian-dominated Indian state of Mizoram. India is planning to seal the Myanmar-India border and end the free movement of people. The Indian government has termed the ethnic violence in Manipur as part of narco-terrorism. However, tribal Christians have accused the pro-Hindu government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of supporting Hindus. “The government is taking stock of the situation in Manipur and Mizoram,” the official told. “Ethnic clashes cannot be checked by force,” he admitted. On May 17, led by a Church group, warring tribal Christians and Hindus in Manipur met for the first time to end the one-year-old sectarian strife. Over a dozen influential leaders from the Meitei Hindu and Kuki Christian communities attended the first-ever meeting held at Bosco Reach Out, a Salesian house in Guwahati, Assam, the largest northeastern state bordering Bangladesh. According to a senior Mizo-ram government official, a fresh batch of 1,430 refugees from Myanmar have taken shelter in the state since May 17 after fighting between the army and armed rebels escalated in the military-ruled neighboring nation. The cash-starved Mizoram government has sought financial aid from the federal government to settle the migration crisis. In Mizoram, which shares borders between Bangladesh and Myanmar, Christians form close to 90% of the state’s 1.1 million people. Nagaland has witnessed many armed struggles over the years with demands for separation from India. The Naga rebellion reached its zenith in 1956 and the state has reported massacres throughout years of struggle. People in 6 districts of the Christian-majority Nagaland refused to vote in the ongoing national election to stress their demand for a separate state. Christians account for 87% of Nagaland’s 2.2 million people.
Catholic college rector in India says religions should collaborate on reconciliation
A Catholic college president in India spoke about the Buddhist Vesak holiday, which commemorates Gautama Buddha, saying he cherishes a hope “that our multi-cultural, interfaith encounters form communities of awareness and the different religious principles and teachings that should benefit all of humanity.”
This month, Vatican published the message “Christians and Buddhists: Working together for Peace through Reconciliation and Resilience” to mark the holiday, which takes place on May 24. “The noble teachings of our respective traditions, and the exemplary lives lived by those whom we revere, bear witness to the abundant benefits of recon-ciliation and resilience,” said Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, the prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue.
“When forgiveness is sought, and broken relationships healed, those who were estranged are reconciled and harmony is restored. Resilience empowers individuals and communities to recover from adversity and trauma,” he continued.
“It fosters courage and hope for a brighter future, since it transforms both victims and the perpetrators and leads to a new life. Reconciliation and resilience unite to form a potent synergy that heals past wounds, forges strong bonds, and makes it possible to meet life’s challenges with fortitude and optimism,” the cardinal added.
Catholic religious in India to collaborate for better future
Superiors of Catholic religious congregations of men and women in India have stressed the need for inter-congregational collaboration for the betterment of the Church amid increasing hostility against Christians. The Conference of Religious India (CRI), the national body of major superiors of Catholic religious congregations, heard several such calls at its May 14-17 gathering in Bengaluru, a southern Indian city. “When we come together, it not only helps us promote innovation and creative thinking among ourselves but also helps us effectively address several pressing problems,” said Apostolic Carmel Sister Maria Nirmalini, the forum president.
“We find the need to enhance inter-congregational collaboration for better networking,” Nirmalini told. Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore asked the gathering to contemplate strategies to arrest the increasing persecution of Christians in the country. The CRI under Nirmalini has initiated a healthcare programme for elderly nuns after the survey found that 64% of nuns were elderly or in-firm. Nearly 190 congregations participated in the survey. More than 61% of the elderly nuns are retired because of physical inability, the survey said. The survey found that 40% of the participating congregations had no facility to look after their elderly. The meeting stressed the need for priests, brothers, and sisters to spare time for the youth and families rather than spend time in institutionalized jobs.
Church launches programme to support informal migrants’ rights
The Commission for Migrants of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI) launched the project “Supporting Informal Mi-grant Workers: Access to Entitlements” to ensure all migrant workers have equal access to basic rights and services. The CCBI Commission for Migrants, together with the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC), envisioned this project as a way to address the challenges faced by informal migrant workers in accessing essential services such as healthcare, education, and social protection. The project will also focus on raising awareness about the rights of informal migrant workers and advocating for policy changes to better protect this marginalized group. While inaugurating the project, Metropolitan Archbishop Most Rev. Anil J.T. Couto the Secretary General of CCBI and CBCI said, “This project is a testament to our commitment to serving the community and providing essential services to those in need. I am confident that this initiative will have a positive impact on the lives of many individuals in our city.” Archbishop Couto expressed his hope that this project will serve as a model for other cities to follow in addressing the challenges faced by marginalised populations.
Church of South India in limbo after apex court order
The routine administration of the Church of South India (CSI) has come to a standstill following a top court order that restrained a court-appointed panel from exercising its power. “We do not know what to do and whom to report as there is no one to manage the daily affairs,” said an official working at the crisis-ridden Church headquarters in the southern city of Chennai. The official, who did not want to be named, said on May 29 they did not know if they would get their salaries for this month as the Supreme Court had restrained the high court-appointed administrators from managing the finances. “We are also uncertain about holidays and annual leaves. We do not know how to deal with this situation,” added the official with the leading Protestant denomination. The Madras High Court in Chennai, the capital of southern Tamil Nadu, on April 12 appointed retired Justices R Balasubramanian and V Bharathidasan as administrators of the Church. They were given the administrator’s powers to handle the Church’s finances and directed to conduct elections to the Synod, the apex decision-making body of the Church. The high court intervened after a section of the laity alleged corruption charges against former Synod moderator Bishop Dharmaraj Rasalam. However, on May 22 the top court in the country issued the restraining orders and posted the matter for hearing on July 8. The CSI was formed in 1947 after India’s independence from Britain as a union of Protestant denominations. Its counterpart in north India is known as the Church of North India (CNI). The CSI has 24 dioceses including one in neighboring Sri Lanka. Among them, 14 have bishops. The administrators have appointed bishops in charge of some of the other dioceses. But following the apex court order, they asked the bishops and other officials to refrain from exercising their powers. Kollam-Kottarakkara diocese in southern Kerala state is headed by a bishop in charge appointed by the administrators.
Christians in Pakistan protest yet another attack over blasphemy
Christians in Pakistan have taken to the streets across the Muslim-majority nation following yet another mob attack over false blasphemy accusations in the central Punjab province. Uca news agency reported that from Peshawar city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to southern Karachi in Sindh, Christians gathered in large numbers this week-end to protest the attack on two houses and a shoe factory owned by a Christian family in Sargodha district in Punjab.
The Christian factory owner, Mr. Nazil Gill Masih and his son were accused of having burnt pages of the Quran in their garbage in the residential area of the Gillwala Mujahid colony of Sargodha and last week were attacked by over 400 men armed with batons, bricks, and stones ransacking and burning their shops and homes. Although twelve members of the family were able to escape, Mr. Masih was badly beaten and severely injured before police arrived and managed to remove him from the mob. He was rushed to hospital in a critical condition. His son was also reportedly beaten and, according to the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), ransacking and fires continued after the attack, posing a grave threat to the safety and well-being of the local Christian community.
The Minorities Alliance Pakistan (MAP) demanded punishment for the perpetrators of violence. For its part ACN has joined in strongly condemning the incident, and has expressed its solidarity with the affected family and the whole Christian community in Pakistan. The police, meanwhile, ha registered cases against 450 unknown persons under an anti-terrorism law and 25 people have been arrested in connection with the attack.
At a demonstration in Peshawar, Christians declared May 25 as a “black day” and more than 500 protesters at the Faisalabad District Council Chowk in central Punjab blocked traffic for two hours and 20 women burned their head scarves in protest, Akmal Bhatti, a Catholic political leader and head of the MAP said.
Myanmar conflict: a state of unprecedented turmoil and suffering, Cardinal Bo says
In an interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, Archbishop of Yangon in Myanmar, said there is an “unprecedented state of turmoil and suffering, which seems to have no end” in the country resulting from a coup d’état at the beginning of 2021 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The conflict has already left more than 100 places of worship bombed or damaged, the cardinal said, and the violence has spread in many areas of the territory. In addition, he said that almost 3 million people have been displaced and are in urgent need of assistance, which has been arriving little by little thanks to the work of the Catholic Church and other nongovernmental organizations such as Religions for Peace.
Although Myanmar is a pre-dominantly Buddhist country, the constitution guarantees religious freedom. However, Bo pointed out a worrying reality: “The last de-cade saw the emergence of funda-mentalist forces that targeted mi-nority religions.”
The situation has been exa-cerbated by recent political unrest affecting people of all faiths who are suffering the consequences of an expanding civil war. “Peace is the common prayer of all the religions,” the cardinal emphasized.
Bangladesh Archbishop dismisses Christian state plot claims as ‘absurd’
“We, the Christians of Bangladesh, and their leaders – the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Bangladesh (CBCB) and the United Forum of Churches (UF-CB) are surprised and worried,” said a joint statement issued on Sunday.
In today’s globalised and secularised world, the idea of a “Christian state” is absurd, said the statement signed by Abp Bejoy D’Cruze of Dhaka, the president of CBCB and UFCB.
The reaction came after Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina accused Christians of plotting to carve out a “Christian state” of their own by taking parts of Bangladesh and Myanmar. “Like East Timor …they will carve out a Christian country taking parts of Bangladesh [Chattogram] and Myanmar with a base in the Bay of Bengal,” national English newspaper The Daily Star quoted Ms Hasina as saying on May 23.
She said the government is under pressure to allow a foreign government to use a base in the Bay of Bengal, which she rejected without naming the country. “Many have their eyes on this place. There is no controversy here, no conflict. I won’t let that happen. This is also one of my crimes [in their eyes],” she said, adding that this is why the Awami League Government is always in trouble.
The alleged plot is neither supported nor accepted by Christians, he said.
Shen Bin’s read on Shanghai Council and Sinicization
This year marks one hundred years since the Council of Shanghai, the first Plenary Council of the Church in China. For the occasion, the Pontifical Urbaniana University in cooperation with the Agenzia Fides organised a conference, which was held today, to highlight the historic event a century ago, but also to look at today’s challenges, starting with the notion of “sinicisation” of religions, an issue central to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s religious policy.
Pope Francis also underlined the importance of the council in 1924, which brought together the bishops and apostolic prefects present in China at the time, in a video message.
A lot of curiosity surrounded the first official visit in Rome of the current bishop of Shanghai, Msgr Joseph Shen Bin, at the centre of tensions last year after Chinese authorities unilaterally transferred him to China’s foremost epis-copal see, a situation later settled by Pope Francis’s decision to appoint him as well.
Bishop Shen was joined by important academics and Church officials from the People’s Republic of China, who brought their vision of what happened a century ago, as well as their views about the relationship between the “inculturation” of the faith promoted by the doctrine of the Church and “sinicisation”, processes seen as two circles that overlap but also diverge.
This also comes with the need for dialogue in the perspective of fraternity to avoid the risk of fuelling “new self-referential closures”, as Card Luis Antonio Tagle, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelisation, put it this in his conclusion. “The stories of our Chinese brothers and sisters have something important to show to the universal Church,” Card Tag-le said. “There may be misunderstandings, but [they are] never half-hearted with respect to the Church’s journey in China.”