Frustrated at the Indian Church leaders’ “lukewarm response” to attacks against Christians, an advocacy group of progressive Catholic priests and nuns called on the country’s Catholic bishops to become good shepherds “who do not run away when the wolf who comes to attack the sheep.”
An open letter from the Forum of Religious for Justice and Peace (FORUM) addressed to the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) also calls for a national seminar to evolve policies and strategies to face the current challenges.
“We are upset about the lukewarm response of the official Church to the increasing violence against Christians ever since Narendra Modi came to power and even the appreciation of the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] government at the centre by some bishops,” reads the letter.
The May 12 letter begins with the forum members expressing shock and distress at the recent violence in Manipur that has led to 60 deaths and injury to 230 people in the northeastern Indian state.
Quoting official statements, the forum said the Manipur violence has also displaced 35,000 people and destroyed 1.700 houses, besides torching 100 churches. “Actual loss of lives and property could be far more than what is reported officially,” the letter says.
Observing that the majority of the victims are Christians, the forum sees in the Manipur violence a pattern “very similar” to what happened in Odisha’s Kandhamal district in 2008.
Around 100 people were killed and more than 56,000 people displaced during anti-Christian violence that lasted four months in Kandhamal.
The forum is also upset with the lack of unity among India’s bishops in responding to the current attacks against Christians.
While CBCI president Archbishop Andrews Thazhath was satisfied with making appeal for praying for peace in Manipur, the Cardinal Poola Anthony, head of the Telugu Catholic Bishops’ Council, and Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore “had the courage and compassion to condemn the rampant violence” targeting the Christian tribal in the state.
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