More than 90 priests, nuns and lay people from across India are attending a four-day specialized training program on project management and fundraising in Kolkata.
The participants for the October 21-24 program at Jesuits’ Dhyana Ashram hail from 30 religious congregations and dioceses. The training aims to train them as development personnel. They came from Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi (National Capital Region), Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand.
The program is organized under the initiative of the Association of Franciscan Family in India (AFFI).
“We must give utmost importance to uplifting the lives of the poor through our intervention as rooted in Christian values.”
Asian Church should become ‘more Asian, less Roman’ Fr Vimal Tirimanna
The Churches in Asia need to seize the moment to stress the Asianness of the Church as Pope Francis encourages Church communities to become more grounded through continental contextual theologies, says Redemptorist Father Vimal Tirimanna, one of Asia’s leading theologians.
The 67-year-old professor of theology at the Pontifical Accademia Alfonsiana in Rome says the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conference (FABC) should build on the theological foundations laid by yesteryear Asian theologians.
The priest, also a member of the Theological Commission of the General Secretariat for the Synod 2021-2024, also believes the synodal process will change “the Church upside down” if the process is taken seriously.
Father Tirimanna spoke with UCA News on Oct. 20 on the sidelines of FABC’s first general conference (Oct.12-30) organized in Bangkok as part of its golden jubilee celebrations. Excerpts from the interview:
“The essence they gave is the Asianness of the Church?” “We need to seize it. But I’m sorry to say I don’t see the enthusiasm and energy to do that. We can do much more than what we are doing because this is our moment. If we lose this, I wonder whether God will give us another moment like this. .. Roman or European theology will not be able to understand and respond to our realities in all their complexities. What we need is an Asian theology.
“Their main common point was that there are three main living realities in Asia: religions, cultures, and the poor. These founding fathers of FABC theology, of course, together with the pioneer FABC bishops, considered that Christian existence in Asia can be appreciated only through triple dialogue — with religions, cultures and the poor. These triple realities characterized Asia in the seventies, and they continue to characterize Asia even today and that will characterize Asia even tomorrow.”
“Environmental issues are here as they are in other parts of the world. Issues of women and youth are also global. We should not lose what characterizes us. Have a dialogue with everybody, but let’s be Asian. If you are not focused well, everything becomes important even with regard to dialogue. That means nothing is important. Have a dialogue but don’t say they are Asian issues alone. But the issues of women in Asia are not that of Europe. So European solutions will not help Asian women. I think I have made my point clear.”
Kandhamal violence: Collector agrees to compensate priest victim’s kin
Kandhamal Collector Ashis Ishwar Patil has promised to comply with a court order to give compensation to a kin of a Catholic priest, who died dur-ing the 2008 anti-Christian violence.
“I have received the High Court Order and asked some clarifications and documents,” the collector told Benadicta Di-gal, brother of Father Bernard Diga, when he met Patil Octo-ber 27 in his office in Phulbani, the district headquarters.
Exactly a month ago, the Odisha High Court directed the Kandhamal collector to com-pensate Father Digal’s legal heir.
The documents sought by the collector are legal heir documents, account number and other requirements from the local tehsildar and revenue inspector. “Don’t worry I assure you to disburse 800,000 in your account immediately,” Benedicta quoted the collector as saying.
Bhopal archdiocese celebrates Bible festival
The Archdiocese of Bhopal has concluded a three-day Bible Mahotsav (grand festival) with the imposition of pallium upon Archbishop Alangaram Arokia Sebastian Durairaj.
The festival, a spiritual retreat for the laity, began with a procession of the Bible at 8:30 am on October 21 at Assumption Church. Father Ishwardas Minj, the vicar general of the archdiocese, inaugurated the retreat by concelebrating Mass.
On the second day, Vincentian Father Shaji, the retreat preacher, emphasized that the Catholics need to be rooted in the love of Christ through communion and participation to carry out the mission of Christ Jesus. It’s an open invitation to become saints of God with Love, Joy and Peace, which are the fruits of the Holy Spirit, he added.
Father Shaji from Jamshedpur also emphasized that everyone has to become a new creation. “God has called each one of us to become saints,” he added.
The retreat concluded with a concelebrated Mass presided over by Divine Word Archbishop Durairaj.
Fisherpeople storm Vizhinjam port as protests enter 100th day
Thousands of fishermen and wo-men on October 28 stormed the under construction Vizhinjam International Port by the Adani groups, throwing police barricades to the Arabian sea as the protest entered 101 days.
The more than 1,500 police force remained calm as the agitated fishing community pulled up the police barricades and threw them into the sea, and burned their own fishing boat as a sign of fru-stration.
“Their life has become stagnated, they are starving for the past 100 days and no force can stop their determination,” said Medical Mission Sister Theramma Prayi-kalam, who has stood with the fisher-people’s cause for the past thirty years.
Sister Prayikalam told that the Fisher people are really frustrated as the govern-ment has failed to give them an empathe-tic response so far. “They are not against any development, but only demanding their right to live in their land and continue their profession as fisher folk,” she ex-plained.
One highlight of the 100th day protest was to expand the strike to also Muthala-pozhy, a fresh entrance used by the Adani groups to transport port construction materials, the nun pointed out. Some incidences of violence were reported from the protest on October 28 as fisher people resisted some media groups from covering the event. It was also reported that the women stormed a police officer for manhandling a Catholic priest during the protests.
“We were not violent for past 100 days, and we don’t know what will happen in the days ahead,” a protester told the media persons.
“We are hungry and angry, jobless and frustrated,” cried an aggrieved woman who demanded their right to live and earn a life in their lands.
Islamist rebels kill nun, six others at Catholic hospital in DR Congo
A Catholic nun serving in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was among the seven people killed October 19 evening when gunmen aligned with the Islamic State attacked a Catholic mission hospital in a raid.
Sister Marie-Sylvie Kavuke Vakatsuraki and six patients at the hospital were killed Oct. 19 when gunmen with the Allied Democratic Forces raided Maboya village, in the country’s northeast province of North Kivu, International Christian Concern reports.
Several people who work or live near the hospital, including two nuns, were missing in the wake of the attack and are feared to be abducted by the raiders, according to International Christian Concern.
The Allied Democratic Forces are rebels from neighboring Uganda. They are aligned with the Islamic State. The group of gunmen which attacked Maboya also stole drugs and medical equipment from the hospital, and set it on fire.
Bishop Melchisédec Sikuli Paluku of Butembo-Beni lamented the killings and strongly condemned the attack. Sister Marie-Sylvie was a medical doctor and a member of the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Presentation of Our Lady at the Temple, the bishop said.
“May the soul of our dear Sister Doctor Marie-Sylvie Kavuke Vakatsuraki, who passed away in the service of her brothers and sisters, rest in peace through the mercy of God!” Paluku said in an Oct. 20 statement obtained by ACI Africa, CNA’s partner agency.
“Words cannot express the horror that has more than crossed the threshold!” he added.
Cardinal Parolin to EWTN: Truth must be ‘fearlessly upheld’
The Vatican’s Secretary of State told employees and colla-borators of EWTN this week that the truth must be “fearlessly upheld” with a merciful and list-ening style.
Speaking at a dinner in Fra-scati, Italy, Oct. 19, Cardinal Pietro Parolin recalled the words of Mother Angelica, the founder of EWTN, who said, “You can-not go to heaven hating someone. Forgive now. Be compassionate now. Be patient and grateful now.” Parolin said the Catholic media should not spread hate, but “promote a non-hostile co-mmunication.”
“The truth, and the values deriving from it, must be fear-lessly upheld,” he continued. “This proclamation, however, should be formulated in a merci-ful style by those who patiently listen to the women and men of our time, who walk with them, even making themselves the interpreters of their suffering and their concerns.”
The secretary of state, who is the second most powerful person in the Vatican after the pope, addressed EWTN during the glo-bal Catholic television network’s seventh European affiliates meet-ing. Parolin underlined that “tru-th, for us Christians, is a Person, the Person of Jesus Christ who, as St. Paul says, holds all things together.”
“It is this encounter that ensures that communication does not remain simply a profession which conveys information but that understands and sets this responsibility within a broader horizon than the albeit important dissemination of news,” he said.
The cardinal recalled Mother Angelica’s saying, “it is our duty to speak the truth, and each per-son can either assume or not assu-me this duty. But the truth must above all be within us.”
“We should always keep this statement in mind and have the same awareness: the truth does not belong to us — we serve the truth,” Parolin commented. “And we can serve it only in love and in unity.”
Macron at Sant’Egidio meeting: Ukraine to decide time, terms of peace with Russia
French President Emmanuel Macron said October 23 it’s up to Ukraine to decide the time and terms of peace with Russia, and he cautioned that the end of war “can’t be the consecration of the law of the strongest.”
Speaking at the opening of a three-day peace conference in Rome, Macron said the international community will be there when the Ukrainian government chooses that time.
“To stay neutral would mean accepting the world order of the strongest, and I don’t agree with this,” Macron said at the conference organized by a Catholic charity with close ties to the Vatican.
There is concern that support from Ukraine’s allies in Europe might be eroded due to soaring energy costs with the approach of winter.
Pope Francis is scheduled to conclude the Cry for Peace conference, sponsored by the Sant’Egidio Community, with a speech Tuesday at the Colosseum.
Syriac monastery in Turkey reopens after 100 years
The Monastery of Mor Efrem (St Ephrem) in Mardin, southern Turkey, an area which was once the heartland of Syriac Christia-nity, has once again opened its doors to believers.
Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan, head of the Syriac Ca-tholic Church, presided over the re-consecration of the building, and celebrated its first Divine Liturgy in a hundred years.
Founded in 1881, the Syriac monastery was seized by the Turkish army during the First World War. It briefly returned to the Church after the war ended, before being transformed into a military hospital in 1922. In more recent times, it had served as a prison and a warehouse.
Patriarch Younan consecrat-ed the church according to the Syriac rite on 13 October, anoint-ing the altar, walls, and doors with oil of chrism, before cele-brating the Divine Liturgy.
The ceremony was attended by Syriac Catholic prelates from across Turkey and the Middle East, the Apostolic Nuncio to Turkey, and Syriac Orthodox bishops and clergy.
New synod doc highlights challenges, but offers few solutions
On October 27 the Vatican released the working document for the next stage in Pope Francis’s ongoing Synod of Bishops on Synodality, which offered a global view of what faithful at all levels of the Church believe needs to happen for it to be a true place of inclusion.
The document, published Oct. 27 and titled “Enlarge the Space of your Tent,” is a summary of reports from national bishops’ conferences, who compiled the reports based on contributions from individual dioceses after an initial consultation phase with local parish communities.
It will serve as the working document for the next, continental stage of the synod, in which episcopal conferences on all seven continents will hold assemblies to reflect on and discuss the contents of the document. These assemblies will then submit a new report based on that discussion, which will be used to draft the working document for the final, universal stage in Rome.
Formally called “For a synodal Church: Communion, participation, mission,” the synod was opened by Pope Francis last October and, rather than the typical month-long meeting of bishops at the Vatican that a synod usually is, this one is unfolding in a multi-stage process extending into 2024.
An initial, diocesan phase of the process lasted from October 2021 to April 2022 and was designed as a consultative process that took place according to certain guidelines issued by the Synod of Bishops. A second, continental phase, began in September and will last through March 2023, when continental bishops’ conferences will coordinate and evaluate the results of the diocesan consultations.
Though notoriously difficult to define, “synodality” is generally understood to refer to a collaborative and consultative style of management in which all members, clerical and lay, participate in making decisions about the church’s life and mission.
In terms of listening and inclusion, the document said groups that often feel excluded are women, remarried divorcees, single parents, people living in a polygamous marriage, LGBTQ individuals, and men who have left the priesthood, as well as the poor, the elderly, indigenous people and migrants, drug and alcohol addicts, and victims of trafficking.
“A growing awareness and sensitivity towards this issue is registered all over the world,” the document said, noting that reports from all continents included an appeal for women, both lay and religious, to be valued as “equal members of the People of God.”