The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) and Odisha Bishops have urged people of Sundargarh district not to give in to divisive forces.
On 1, April 2018, in the late night of Easter Sunday, some miscreants vandalized a grotto outside the compound of St. Thomas Church, Salangabahal in Raurkela diocese, Odisha, mutilated the statue of Our Lady, and broke the head of the statue of Child Jesus in the grotto. They smashed a statue of Our Lady in another Grotto in Gyanpali village and attempted to burn the Church of the Victory of the Cross in Bihabandh.
The antisocial elements had also chopped off the head of a statue of a bull at the Shiva Temple in the vicinity.
On April 7, a delegation of Bishops which comprised of Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas SFX, the Secretary-General of the CBCI, Archbishop John Barwa SVD, Regional Chairman of the Odisha Catholic Bishops’ Council, Bishop Kishor Kumar Kujur of Rourkela, Bishop Telesphore Bilung SVD of the Archdiocese of Ranchi, Bishop Emeritus Alphonse Bilung of Rourkela, visited the affected areas.
