Pope Francis spent 40 minutes with Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary, whom he received in audience on April 21 morning. The premier arrived at the Vatican shortly before 11 am, accompanied by his wife and entourage, and did not meet with other Vatican authorities due to the private nature of his visit. Orbán is on his first trip abroad since his re-election as head of his government on 3 April. “My first official trip after the elections will take me to the Vatican, to Pope Francis,” Orbán himself revealed on Wednesday via his Facebook account. Pope Francis welcomed the Prime Minister in the Apostolic Library inviting him to take a seat. The conversation between the two leaders took place in the presence of an interpreter, but speaking in English, the Pope blessed Mr. Orbán, his family, and Hungary, a country that is engaged in offering shelter to neighbouring Ukrainians fleeing the war.
26 Million Americans Stopped Reading the Bible Regularly During COVID-19
When researchers for the American Bible Society’s annual State of the Bible report saw this year’s survey statistics, they found it hard to believe the results. The data said roughly 26 million people had mostly or completely stopped reading the Bible in the last year.
“We reviewed our calculations. We double-checked our math and ran the numbers again … and again,” John Plake, lead researcher for the American Bible Society, wrote in the 2022 report. “What we discovered was startling, disheartening, and disruptive.”
In 2021, about 50 percent of Americans said they read the Bible on their own at least three or four times per year. That percentage had stayed more or less steady since 2011.
But in 2022, it dropped 11 points. Now only 39 percent say they read the Bible multiple times per year or more. It is the steepest, sharpest decline on record.
According to the 12th annual State of the Bible report, it wasn’t just the occasional Scripture readers who didn’t pick up their Bibles as much in 2022 either. More than 13 million of the most engaged Bible readers—measured by frequency, feelings of connection to God, and impact on day-to-day decisions—said they read God’s Word less.
Currently, only 10 percent of Americans report daily Bible reading. Before the pandemic, that number was at about 14 percent.
Plake thinks the dramatic change shows how closely Bible reading – even indepen-dent Bible reading – is connected to church attendance. When regular services were interrupted by the pandemic and related health mandates, it impacted not just the corporate bodies of believers but also individuals at home.
“The elephant in the room is COVID-19,” he told CT. “As we’ve been tracking and kind of digging into what really ha-ppened around Scripture engagement in 2022, we realized there were some big issues happening in the United States at the time that we were collecting the data.”
The State of the Bible survey collected data in January 2022 as the omicron variant of the coronavirus was surging.
Most churches remained open, with an additional online option. Only about 3 percent were not meeting in person at all, according to Lifeway Research. But the pandemic took a visible toll on church attendance. Pew Research Center found that nearly a third of regular churchgoers have not returned to church buildings. Some choose to participate online, but others have dropped out completely.
Christians want Easter declared public holiday in Bangladesh
The Bangladesh Christian Association (BCA) has urged authorities not to allow educational institutions to hold examinations on Easter Sunday. The organization also called on the government to declare Easter a public holiday.
In a press statement on April 4, BCA president Nirmol Rozario and secretary Hemanta Corraya called on educational institutions not to hold examinations on April 17.
“Easter Sunday is one of the major religious festivals of the Christian community all over the world. The day is an optional holiday in the official calendar but we have heard that some educational institutions will conduct exams on that day. Our demand is for students to be given leave to observe the holiday,” the statement said.
Shojib Minj, a 22-year-old Oran Catholic student at a private university, was unhappy about exams being slated for Easter Sunday.
“We are now third-year students and our exams are ongoing. According to the routine, our course exam is on April 17, the day of Easter. But my wish is to go to the village and celebrate with my relatives and parents,” Minj told.
He also urged educational institutions not to hold exams on that day and said the government should declare Easter a public holiday.
“We have been campaigning for a public holiday on Easter Sunday for almost two decades, but there has been no response from the government.”
Christians form a tiny minority in Bangladesh — less than half a percent of 160 million people in the Muslim-majority country. Of an estimated 600,000 Christians, the majority, about 400,000, are Catholics.
The Christian community in Bangla-desh has long demanded a public holiday on Easter Sunday, but the government has yet to comply.
Hindu-Christian row mars rise of Naga woman to Indian parliament
Religion is back in business in India’s Nagaland state. The strongly perceived Christian identity of the indigenous Na-gas is making headlines.
Nagaland is a Christian and tribal-dominated province in the northeast where guerrillas are still seeking independence.
S. Phangnon Konyak, a Naga Christian woman who heads the local women’s wing of the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was recently elected to the Rajya Sabha or upper house of parliament by her party. As expected, BJP leaders called it revolutionary and empowering for women, especially in the context of a state that has so far not elected a single woman legislator to the local legislature.
Phangnon is only the second woman parliamentarian from the state and the first female among Nagas to be elected to the Rajya Sabha.
However, the episode has gradually become a Hindu-versus-Christianity issue, at least for some individuals and political players. Curiously, one church leader has jumped on the bandwagon.
“The people’s government with Christian votes has shamed and destroyed the image of every Christian and that of the Christian state.”
Appeals filed against Bishop Mulakkal’s acquittal
The January 14 acquittal of Bishop Franco Mulakkal in a rape case involving a Catholic sister has been challenged in an appellate court by both the accuser and the prosecution.
Bishop Mulakkal confirms that the government and the nun have appealed to the high court against his acquittal. “Yes. It is their right. We respect it,” he told GSR.
Under Indian law, acquittals in criminal cases may be appealed.
The accuser filed the appeal March 28 in the Kerala High Court online, but it was not officially listed because of some defects in the filing. The nun’s supporters told Global Sisters Report on March 30 that they will fix the problems and the case should be listed in a day or two.
Meanwhile, the home department of the Kerala state government on March 29 sanctioned the prosecution to appeal Mulakkal’s acquittal.
The government move ended the speculation that the Communist-led government in Kerala was not serious about appealing the acquittal.
Nun’s murderer admits killing another elderly nun
The man held in connection with the murder of a 69-year-old nun in Pala allegedly had killed another elderly nun at a convent near Erattupetta in April this year, police said on Tuesday. Satheesh Babu, who has been remanded in police custody for the probe into the murder of Sister Amala in Lisieux Carmel Convent at Pala, has “confessed” to having attacked 83-year-old Jose Maria Iruppakkad at her room in the Sacred Heart Convent in Chettuthodu in Erattupetta in April this year, they said.
Indian priest’s kin seek federal agency probe into his murder
A close relative of a Catholic priest found dead under suspicious circum-stances inside a major seminary in southern India has demanded a federal agency probe to establish the truth. Father K.J. Thomas, 62, the then rector of St. Peter’s Pontifical Institute, Bangalore (now Bengaluru) in Karnataka state, was found dead with multiple injuries outside his room at the seminary on April 1, 2013.
“My uncle was physically tortured and murdered in the most inhuman way,” Joyson Mathew claimed in a March 27 communiqué addressed to Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore, blaming ethnic rivalry within the archdiocese for the suspected murder.
The nephew of the deceased priest said his family was not happy with the tardy investigations conducted by the state’s police and urged the Arch-bishop to pursue the Karnataka state government to hand over the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), a premier federal agency.
Synodality key for Church’s relevance in third millennium: Theologian
A renowned Asian theologian says the synodal process now underway in the Catholic Church should prepare it to become relevant in the third millennium and respond to modern challenges.
Synodality reflects how the Church’s life and mission should adapt to the modern world. It flows from the Christian value of upholding hu-mans as unique reflection of God’s mystery and image, asserts Father Felix Wilfred, emeritus professor at the State University of Madras, and the founder director of the Asian Centre for Cross-Cultural Studies in Chennai.
The 74-year-old priest was the keynote speaker at a national conference on the theme “Church in India on the Path of Synodality” organized by the department of missiology of Bengaluru’s St Peter’s Pontifical Institute.
The March 21-23 conference was held to help the Church in India reflect on synodal theme, explained Fr Antony Lawrence, who head the department.
Father Wilfred expects the synodal process to lead a tran-sition from the Bishops’ synod to the synodal Church. For this, drastic structural changes are required, a major theological issue synodal process should address, he asserted.
He said when the Church really practices synodality it would become an inverted pyramid. For this, the canon law that now vests the governance on the clergy, has to change to allow all baptized Catholic to share in the exercise of power.
Former Alleppey bishop dies
Bishop Emeritus Stephen Athipozhiyil of Alleppey passed away due to cardiac arrest on April 9, at 8.15 pm at St. Sebastian, Visitation Hospital, Arthunkal in Kerala. He was 77. Funeral was held on Tuesday, April 12, 2022 at Mount Carmel Cathedral at 10.30 am.
Novice found dead in Kerala convent
Another mysterious death of a novice nun was reported from Kerala, the southern Indian state with a sizable Catholic population.
The 21-year-old nun trainee had gone to room at 10:30 pm on April 1. When she did not join a special night prayer in the convent chapel, sisters went to her room and found her hanging. They rushed Alex to a nearby Dharmagiri Hospital where she was declared brought dead.