After the recent arrests of priests and a nun in India on charges that they violated the Hindu-majority country’s “anti-conversion” laws, a Catholic bishop has sent out an appeal “to storm heaven with prayers.”
Bishop Ignatius D’Souza of Bareilly in the Archdiocese of Agra issued a “prayer request” on social media Feb. 7.
“I request you to storm heaven so that all those who are dealing with this sensitive case may get enlightened by the Holy Spirit and our brothers may be released soon,” D’Souza pleaded.
In the post, he said that Father Dominic Pinto and nine Protestant lay organizers have been taken into custody on charges that they violated the anti-conversion act, which, he said, does not allow those arrested to be released on bail.
Eleven out of India’s 28 states have passed laws to criminalize forced conversions but, in practice, they have been used to prevent the practice of the Christian faith.
Pinto, director of the Lucknow Diocese’s pastoral center in northern Uttar Pradesh state, was arrested on Feb. 6 for allowing a gathering of 100 people led by evangelical pastors to take place in the Catholic center. The government of Uttar Pradesh is controlled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is the party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
India’s population is 79.8% Hindu, 14.2% Muslim, and 2.3% Christian. In Uttar Pradesh state – India’s most populous state with 2.3 million inhabitants – only 18% are Christian.
“Hindu fundamentalists barged into the center and insisted on the arrest of the priest at the police station along with the pastors while other fundamentalists even threatened the nearby convent and nuns nearby,” Father Donald D’Souza, chancellor of the Lucknow Diocese, told.