Indian bishops and the country’s oldest lay Catholic organization have urged church members to stand in solidarity with the poor, who have been marginalized even more during the Covid-19 pandemic.
As the nation is still following federal government guidelines to restrict social gatherings, the All India Catholic Union (AICU) held its annual general meeting through a webinar.

The meeting was inaugurated by Archbishop Felix Machado of Vasai, secretary general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), in Mumbai on Aug. 16.

He said that Pope St John Paul II and Pope Francis had stressed that foreign debt, with manipulated taxes and interests of the creditors, should be cancelled.

“All Indian citizens are equal to us in dignity before God; and as Catholics, all people in the world are equal to us in dignity,” Archbishop Machado said.