The contribution of Jesuit Father Jerome D’Souza as one of the architects of the Indian Constitution was recalled at a function in Mangaluru, southern India.
Father D’Souza (1897-1977), a native of Mangaluru, was a member of India’s Constituent Assembly that met 1946-1950 in New Delhi to draft the country’s Constitution that came into effect on January 26, 1950.
Vatican delegate’s mission questioned in Indian Church
The appointment of a Vatican re-presentative, who arrived to help find a solution to the lingering liturgical dispute in India’s eastern rite Syro-Malabar Church, has turned contro-versial after a section of Catholics maintained that his papal delegation itself is suspect.
Jesuit Archbishop Cyril Vasil of Slovakia arrived at the Church’s base in southern Kerala state on Aug. 4. But a group of Catholics in the Chur-ch’s Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdio-cese say his letter of appointment from the Vatican is not made available to the archdiocese, nor published anywhere.
Goa Church distances from layman’s “unite or perish” call
The Catholic Church in Goa has distanced itself from a layman’s call to fellow Goans to unite or be doomed.
The call appeared in an article published in the August 1-15 edition of the “Renewal,” the bimonthly pastoral bulletin of the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman.
The writer, F E Noronha, in his one-page article, titled “Goans need to Unite …or they will perish,” referred to politicians such as the state chief minister talking about destroying traces of Portuguese culture. Such announcements are part of a holocaust under preparation, he warned.
The Goa edition of The Times of India on August 5 carried a report with the headline, “Church bulletin article warns Manipur-like situation in Goa.”
Reacting to such reports, Father Barry Cardozo, director of the Diocesan Centre for Social Communications Media, asked the newspaper to publish a corrigendum, stating the Church’s stand on the matter.
“A section of the print media has recently carried a misleading report titled ‘Church predicts Manipur-like situation in Goa.’ We would like to state that the Church in Goa has never made such a statement. Statements made by an individual contributor to the pastoral bulletin of this Archdiocese have been made to appear as (official) statements of the Church. The pertinent newspaper has been asked to issue a corrigendum.”
Iran targets minorities one year after Mahsa Amini’s death, 69 Christians arrested
Iran arrested scores of Christians, mostly converts from Islam but also some Assyrian-Chaldeans baptised as children, over a seven-week period in June and July in 11 different cities of the country, this according to Article18, a human rights organisation that advocates on behalf of Iranian Christians and religious freedom.
In an early report, the NGO had reported 50 arrests by mid-July in five cities, but its latest update indicates that at least 69 people were taken into custody, 10 of which – four men and six women – are still held by the authorities.
The arrests occurred between 1 June and 17 July in the following cities: Tehran, Karaj, Rasht, Orumiyeh, Aligoudarz, Isfahan, Shiraz, Semnan, Garmsar, Varamin, and Eslamshahr.
In the capital Tehran and the other cities, after their arrest, people were forced to sign statements pledging to refrain from Christian activities or undergo Islamic re-education in order to be released.
Some say that after their release they were summoned for further questioning, or were ordered to leave Iran. One said he lost his job at the request of intelligence agents. For those granted bail, families had to pay between US$ 8,000 and US$ 40,000.
The majority of those arrested are converts from Islam, but at least two are Iranian-Armenians, who were born into Christian families..
The wave of arrests among Christians also coincides with a new crackdown on Iran’s Baha’i community, which, along with Christian converts, is a minority religious group not recognised by the Islamic Republic.
Indian Christians organize prayer meet for Manipur before UN
The Indian Christian community in the Tri-state area organized a vigil in front of the United Nations to pray for peace and justice in Manipur where ethnic clashes have raged since May 3.
The participants of the August 5 program prayed for good sense to come to the perpetrators of the violence and for the authorities to have the courage to reign in the continuing attacks on the Kuki-Zo tribal people, mostly Christians, in the northeastern Indian state.
The vigil, attended by more than 700 people, expressed solidarity with the grieving people of Manipur. “Prayers by the clergy reflected the deep pain felt across the Indian Christian Community in the United States for the great calamity that befell Manipur with tremendous loss of human lives and destruction of homes and churches,” says a press statement from the Federation of Indian American Christians of North America (FIACONA), one of the organizers.
“This is not a protest rally. We aim not to examine why the riots happened, who is responsible, or politics. We are here today to pray for the rule of law in Manipur, and obviously, there are limits as to what we can do to help. However, Prayer does not have any limitations,” said FIACONA president Koshy George.
Catholic activist Bobo Yip among 10 arrested over Fund linked to Card Zen
In Hong Kong, the authorities have ordered another crackdown against pro-democracy activists and civil liberties advocates under the infamous national security law, Beijing imposed in 2020.
As part of this, police yesterday arrested 10 people for allegedly violating the draconian law in connection with a humanitarian relief fund. Card Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, Hong Kong’s bishop emeritus, was also detained because of his involvement with the fund, which disbanded two years ago.
In an operation, a prominent Catholic leader was also arrested. According to the Hong Kong Free Press (HHKFP) newspaper, six men and four women were taken into custody, including Bobo Yip, former chairwoman of the diocese’s Justice and Peace Commission.
Following the arrest, police took Yip to a Catholic bookstore in the Yau Ma Tei neighbourhood to gather evidence against her, seizing two computers.Charges against the 10 were mentioned in Card Zen’s trial, who was formally accused of failing to register the fund; If convicted, the 10 face a long prison sentence, up to life imprisonment.
Indian Christians observe annual ‘Black Day’ protest
Indian Christians observed what has become an annual “Black Day” protest on Aug. 10 as a vital panel readies to submit a report on granting reservation status under India’s affirmative action policy to Christian and Muslim Dalits.
Protest marches, rallies, and debates were held across the country as different Christian denominations sought scheduled caste status to avail reservation benefits in jobs and educational institutions for Dalit Christians who form 75 percent of India’s 25 million Christian population.
In New Delhi, members of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), National Council of Churches in India, and National Council of Dalit Christians observed a “silent protest” outside the Sacred Heart Cathedral after permission was denied to hold it at the Jantar Mandar, a place earmarked for protests in the national capital.
Dalit Christians began observing Aug. 10 as a “Black Day” in 2009 and the protest has grown to include all Christian denominations in recent years.The observance is to protest against a 1950 presidential decree issued on Aug. 10 which denied reservation benefits to downtrodden people who left Hinduism for other religions.
The government, headed by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, issued the decree to prevent the mass exodus of Dalits from caste-ridden Hinduism to other egalitarian and progressive religions like Christianity and Islam. Under Hinduism, the caste system is a “divinely sanctioned” social order where one’s social status is determined by a hereditary vocation.
Dalits are on the lowest rung of the Hindu caste system and are destined to toil for the benefit of upper castes. They currently make up more than 25 percent of India’s 1.4 billion inhabitants.The term Dalits was used as a translation by the British Raj for the first time during a census classification of “depressed classes.”
40 Priest Suicides Plague Brazil in 7-Year Nightmare
A Brazilian priest who specializes in psychological and pastoral approaches to preventing suicide and self-harm is raising the alarm at the Vatican following the suicides of at least 40 priests in Brazil over the past seven years.
Loneliness, stress and excessive demands are driving priests to kill themselves, concludes Fr. Lício de Araújo Vale, from the diocese of São Miguel Paulista, after his extensive research into the ministries of the 40 priests who took their own lives between 2016 and 2023.
Several priests who committed suicide were accused of sexual abuse, a key factor Fr. Vale omits to mention in his article titled “The Suicide of Priests in Brazil,” published in the Portuguese edition of Vatican News on July 27.
In fact, the first priest Vale named was Fr. Bonifácio Buzzi, a 57-year-old Brazilian priest who hanged himself in his solitary confinement prison cell using bed sheets at the Tres Coracoes prison in the state of Minas Gerais.
Buzzi was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2007 for the rape of a 9-year-old boy six years earlier.
In 2015, he was released from prison and other complaints were filed against him. In 2016, he was rearrested for the rape of two other minors in the rural area of Tres Coracoes.
Father Vale’s research ends with the suicide of Fr. Mário Castro Ribeiro, a much-loved 55-year-old priest from the parish of São Francisco das Chagas in the diocese of Roraima. The diocese refused to reveal the cause of Fr. Ribeiro’s death.
In India, five priests committed suicide in just ten months between October 2019 and July 2020.
China’s plan to resume cross demolitions worries Christians
Christians in Zhejiang province in eastern China have expressed their disappointment over a government plan to resume demolition of crosses in line with the socialist principles of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The province, home to about two million Protestants and about 200,000 Catholic Christians, has endured demolition of hundreds of crosses since 2014.
In the latest case, local authorities issued a notice to Dongqiao Christian Church in Zhejiang on Aug. 3 that stated the cross installed at the church premises will be “forcefully” removed, ChinaAid reported on Aug. 8.
An unnamed pastor at the church criticized the move by the government saying it is harmful for the peace and tranquility of the society in China.
The “demonic wind of removing crosses may rise again,” the pastor told ChinaAid.
Following the government move the church has issued a public notice urging “brothers and sisters in Christ to pray fervently for this matter.”
The pastor said last month that the governments of Shanxi Town, Yongjia County, and Lucheng District demanded that churches remove Christian phrases from public view.
Reportedly, the authorities had ordered the removal of bronze plaques and characters on church walls bearing the words “Emmanuel,” “Jesus,” “Christ,” and “Jehovah.”
Media reports say the province with a significant Christian population came under crackdown since Xi Jinping became China’s president.
Between 2014 and 2016, more than 1,500 churches were affected by cross demolitions in Zhejiang, ChinaAid stated.
On April 28, 2014, Wenzhou City’s local government forcibly removed the cross of Sanjiang Church in Wenzhou which is popularly known as “the Jerusalem of the East” for its large Christian population.
Admission Free, but Churches Empty. Dreams and Realities of a Pontificate on the Wane
The Church “does not have doors”, and therefore everyone can come in, but truly “everyone, everyone, everyone, without any exclusion.” This is the message on which Pope Francis insisted most during his travel to Lisbon, in the run-up to a synod that – in its “Instrumentum laboris” – puts at the top of the list of those invited to enter “the divorced and remarried, people in polygamous marriages, or LGBTQ+ Catholics.”
But meanwhile in Italy, where Francis is bishop of Rome and primate, the churches are emptying out. An in-depth survey conducted for the magazine “Il Timone” by Euromedia Research has determined that today only 58.4 % of Italian citizens over the age of 18 identify themselves as “Catholics,” as opposed to the 37% who are “non-believers.” And those who go to Mass on Sundays are just 13.8 % of the population, mostly over 45, with even lower numbers in Lombardy and Veneto, the regions that have been the historic stronghold of the Italian “Catholic world.”
Not only that. Even among “practicing” Catholics, those who go to Mass once or more a month, just one out of three recognizes in the Eucharist “the real body of Christ,” while the others reduce it to a vague “symbol” or a “commemoration of the bread of the last supper.” And also just one in three are those who go to confession at least once a year, still convinced that it is a sacrament for the “remission of sins.” It comes as no surprise that the Benedictine theologian Elmar Salmann should have said in a June 14 interview with “L’Osservatore Romano” that even more concerning for him than the number of the faithful is the decline of sacramental practice, which “is about to go under.”