The Church in India has congratulated Dilip Tirkey, who was elected unopposed as the president of the Ho-ckey Federation of India.
“We extend our congratulations to Dilip Tirkey for this new top job in India. The Church of India is definitely proud of him,” said Divine Word Father Nicholas Barla, secretary of the Office of Tribal Affairs under the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI).
Tirkey, a former India captain, on September 23 became Hockey India’s first player-president of the federation.
Hockey India elections were scheduled for October 1 but the results were de-clared in advance as there were no contestants.
Tirkey was elected after Uttar Pradesh Hockey chief Rakesh Katyal and Hockey Jharkhand’s Bhola Nath Singh withdrew their nominations.
Father Barla says Tirkey has come up from a rural set up in Sundargarh district of the eastern Indian state of Odisha, considered the hockey garden of the country. “We expect him to provide opportunities for rural as well talented youth,” he continued.
Remembering the crimes of India’s Dara Singh
The Christian community in India remembers Jan. 22, 1999, as the day Australian missionary Graham Stuart Staines, who worked with leprosy patients in Odisha, and his young sons Timothy and Philip, were burned alive. It was on that day that the Western world really came face to face with the violence being meted out to the minuscule reli-gious minority by the Hindutva extremist groups collectively known as the Sangh Parivar.
The trio was sleeping in their jeep in a clearing in the Manour-harpur-Baripada forest when they were surrounded by a mob led by Dara Singh, a local chief of the militant Bajrang Dal, who had gained a reputation as the scourge of cattle traders driving their animals through forest roads in the state on the east coast of India. Dara Singh had earlier slain a man called Rahman, a Muslim cattle trader.
The Staines family massacre remained international news, both in the West and especially in his home country, Australia, for a long time. The triple deaths were horrendous. The father and sons had been set on fire as they slept. As the flames rose, they tried to escape the vehicle but were beaten back into the fire by the mob with bamboo sticks.
The ups and downs of the trial in the superior courts were equally dramatic. It would seem the courts had not fully under-stood the murderous ideology of the killer group. The Supreme Court of India, which finally sentenced Dara Singh to a life term in prison, agreed with the High Court of Orissa (the state high court of Odisha) that the killers did not deserve the death penalty handed to them by the trial court.
The system was not shamed by the words of Graham Staines’ widow Gladys who told TV news reporters that she had “forgiven the murderers of her husband and her two young sons.” The criminal justice system was the job of the government.
US Congress seeks independent probe into Stan Swamy’s death
An organization engaged in spreading awareness about Chri-stian contribution to the Indian society has urged the Karnataka governor not to sign a bill against religious conversions.
“It is nothing but a dictatorial bill,” says a letter the Reverend Ferdinand Kittle Foundation wrote to the state Governor Thawar Chand Gehlot September 17, a day after the Karnataka Legislative Council, the upper house of the state legislature, passed the Karnataka Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion Bill, 2021, (anti-conversion bill).
The bill that now awaits the governor’s signature to become a law “is undemocratic” and against the “spirit of secularism of India,” asserts the Bengaluru-based organization and pleaded the governor to consider points such as the bill’s harmful and detrimental impact on the Indian secular society.
“The Indian Constitution has given the right to practice and propagate one’s religion. And every Indian citizen has the right to choose his/her own religion,” asserted the letter signed by or-ganization president Anthony Vikram, vice president Solomon Raj and general secretary Dalith Francis.
They warn that bringing such a “draconian law” has created fear as it takes away people’s right to change religion “freely without fear of atrocities by self-proclaimed moral policing group.”
The Filipino shepherd has spoken but will the sheep listen
Filipino Catholic bishops led by the Archbishop of Manila have urged church-goers not to forget the atrocities during the martial law era. But will the people heed their advice?
The Catholic Church’s hierarchy had gone silent after the presidential election results in May. It was perhaps a painful realization for them that very few Catholics listened to their call to support opposition candidate and for-mer Vice President Leonor Robredo.
The Catholic Church had not involved itself in national politics since the Church-supported 1986 People Power Revolution, which removed Dictator Ferdinand Marcos from power.
During the presidential election, clergy-men wore pink masks and shirts — the color adopted by Robredo supporters. Pastoral letters were issued against martial law and election frontrunner Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s purported effort to revise Philippine history.
Despite accusations of electioneering by conservatives, priests formed associations to support Robredo. The Canon law’s provision for the Church’s non-partisanship was stretched to the limit. But still, Robredo lost. Marcos, Jr. won by an overwhelming majority with 31 million votes.
What happened to the Catholic consci-ence? Do Catholics in the Philippines still listen to their bishops and priests? Or have they pushed them aside while they themselves decide on matters that directly affect the nation?
On the 50th anniversary of martial law, the Catholic prelates spoke.
Perceived to be a clergyman who doesn’t engage in politics, Archbishop Cardinal Jose Fuerte Advincula broke his silence on martial law. Now the stance of the Archbishop of Manila is clear. His statement should silence any critics. He’s not an archbishop sitting in an ivory tower while looking at his flock in the old walled city of Intramuros in the capital.
Cardinal Advincula is still a pastor who does not want to erase the atrocities of martial law from Philippine history, and I suppose, from the history of the Catholic Church in the Philippines.
Karnataka governor urged not to sign anti-conversion law
Mother of renowned author Arundhati Roy passes away
Mary Roy, an educator and a women’s rights activist, died September 1 after a brief ill-ness in Kottayam, a town in the southern Indian state of Kerala. She was 89.
She was survived by two children, son Lalit Roy and daughter Arundhati Roy, renowned writer and activist who won the 1997 Man Booker prize for her novel “God of Small Things.”
Roy was known for winning a landmark Supreme Court case in 1986 that ensured equal rights in family property for women belonging to the Syrian Christian community in Kerala. She fought a 39-year-long legal battle to gain equal access to the property of her deceased father that led to the Supreme Court judgment against the archaic Travancore Christian Succession Act of 1916.
Citizen groups in Varanasi rally in support of Bilkis Bano
A powerful citizen’s movement in Varanasi has come to the streets demanding justice to Bilkis Bano, a rape survivor of the 2002 communal riots in the western Indian state of Gujarat.
The Sajha Sanskriti Manch (SSM, United Forum for Cultural Diversity), network of various social and human rights organization, has organized a series of public protests, rallies and signature campaign in various parts of the northern Indian holy city to demand repeal of the mercy given by the Gujarat High Court to the 11 rapists and murderers.
SSM, in collaboration with Joint Action Council, an organization of the Students of Ba-naras Hindu University and Dakhal (Initiative), a young women’s organization for the rights of women and transgenders through cultural and political interventions, organized its third public meeting August 26 at Sarnath, 10 km northeast of Varanasi.
SSM convenor Father Ana-nd Mathew of the Indian Missionary Society, while addressing the gathering said: “We are standing in front of the Sarnath museum where the Ashoka pillar, symbol of peace and dharma is preserved. The place is significant because it is here Buddha preached his first sermon, denoting the four noble truths of dharma. And from here we appeal to the judiciary not to perpetuate in-justice.”
He condemned the court verdict which he says certi-fies the exploi-tation of wo-men and mino-rity communities. He indicated the communal angle and appeasement of the majority community in the unjust court verdict and expressed the hope that the Supreme Court will give justice to Bilkis Bano and other suffering women and minority communities.
He also appealed for justice to Teesta Setalvad, Himanshu Kumar, Sanjeev Bhat and R.B. Sree Kumar who are jailed for their voice of dissent and standing for truth. Jagriti Rahi, a prominent woman activist of Varanasi, explained in detail the repercussions of this cruel verdict in favor of people who gang raped Bilkis Bano, murdered her three year daughter and seven members of her family in front of her eyes during the Gujarat riots.
Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav Kolkata event honours four Clergymen
At an event marking Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav – 75 years of India’s in-dependence – and Literacy Day, Church Art Kolkata honoured four clergy men for outstanding contribution to society along with several other eminent citizens. The program was held at Indian Council for Cultural Relations Kolkata Satyajit Ray auditorium, September 8, 2022.
Church Art based out of Kolkata is a pan-India initiative with global linkages engaged in promoting education, art and Indian culture for the past 25 years under Shri Subrata Ganguly.
Besides achievers from different walks of life felicitated at the event, there were four clergy men and six high ranking officials of Eastern Rail-way Sealdah like Principal Chief Engineer, Divisional Railway Manager, Additional Divisional Railway Manager and Divisional Engineer Coordinator.
Speaking at the occasion, one of the achievers, President of the Press Club Kolkata Mr Snehasish Sur said, “September 8 is Mother Mary’s birthday and Literacy Day in which several priests and Railway officials are honoured, indicates education is carried forward through mothers, priests and technology.”
Priest who inspired Dalit movements in southern India dies
Father P Antonisamy, who was an inspiration to scores of Dalit priests, religious and lay faithful, died on Sept. 6 in Pondicherry. He was 82.
He was a resident of Emmaus house in Pondicherry, a house of the retired clergy of the Archdiocese, for the past five years.
Protesting Indian fishermen hit with restraining order
An Indian court has issued a re-straining order against Catholic fisher-men protesting against a multi-billion dollar seaport in the southern Indian state of Kerala and ordered the stepping up of security at the project site.
The Kerala High Court issued the order on September 1 in response to a petition by Adani Vizhinjam Port and its contractors seeking police protection from alleged disruption to their work by the protesting fishermen and their families led by the Latin Archdiocese of Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram).