INDIA
Dalit’s murder exposes caste bias in Church
THE DALIT Commission of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India joined civil-rights groups last week in condemning the murder of a Dalit Catholic gravedigger, Rajendran, whose body was found on 24 January in a lake at Thatchur, writes Anto Akkara. The gravedigger had dug a grave for a low-caste Dalit in ground regarded by upper-caste Catholics as reserved for their higher caste. “It is a call for the entire
Christian community to condemn the dastardly act of murdering a Dalit Christian. Let the bishops of Tamil Nadu and India take serious note of all forms of discrimination and take positive steps to eradicate untouchability within the Christian community,” said the commission. Two days before he was killed, Rajendran had dug a grave for the Dalit brother of a priest in the church cemetery where only upper-caste Indians had been buried in its 198-year history.
COLOMBIA
Gunman kills two priests
TWO PARISH priests were murdered last week in the Colombian capital, Bogotá. Fr Rafael Reátiga Rojas, 35, and Fr Richard Armando Piffano Laguado, 37, were in a car when another passenger shot them and then escaped in another vehicle, writes Jon Stibbs. The murders took place on
26 January in the southern outskirts of the city. Bishop Juan Vicente Córdoba Villota, secretary of the bishops’ conference, said: “It is a mystery, it is a great pain; we totally repudiate and deeply lament these events. Both men spent years in the development of their beautiful work.” He suggested the motive for the murders was not robbery.
AUSTRALIA
Ordinariate preparations kick off with a festival
Mark Brolly In Melbourne
ANGLICANS AND Roman Catholics met on Queensland’s Gold Coast this week as prepara- tions gathered pace for the inauguration of the Australian ordinariate at Pentecost. Bishop Peter Elliott, the
Australian Catholic bishops’ del- egate for the ordinariate, and Archbishop John Hepworth, the Adelaide-based Primate of the Traditional Anglican Commun - ion, were to host jointly what was described as “a festival introduc- ing the Anglican ordinariate for Australia”, for all those interested in joining or wanting to support the provision established under Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009 apos- tolic constitution, Angli canorum
Coetibus. Up to 50 clergy and laity, including some members of the mainstream Anglican Commun - ion, were expected to meet at St Stephen’s College, Coomera, for the three-day meeting, which was due to conclude on Thursday 3 February. “We will explore what the Holy
Father describes as ‘Anglican pat- rimony’, which the ordinariate will treasure and maintain,” said Bishop Elliott, a former Anglican who is now auxiliary bishop in Melbourne. Last week, the Sydney Morning
Herald reported that the promi- nent Sydney barrister John McCarthy QC had been briefed to advise the Traditional Anglican Communion on constitutional and legal issues arising from the historic move. Archbishop
Hepworth was quoted in the same article as expressing confi- dence that the group’s assets, such as properties or trust funds, would not be forfeited once the ordinar- iate becomes official. But he conceded in the case of assets owned by the mainstream Anglican Commun ion that it would be a question of “goodwill’.’ ■Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Canberra and Goulburn has said that Australian Catholics have much to learn from their smaller Pacific neighbours about more imaginative church leadership. In his column in the archdioce- san monthly Catholic Voice, he wrote that in Samoa catechists are lay pastoral leaders who “are a crucial part of the way the Church works there … there was no antagonism [with the] priests”.
UNITED STATES Visitation ‘not as bad as was feared’
A PROMINENT woman Religious, Loretto Sister Mary Ann Cunningham, has described those who conducted the apos- tolic visitation of women’s religious orders in the United States as “warm, friendly, recep- tive”, writes Michael Sean Winters. Writing in an article in the
National Catholic Reporter, Sr Mary Ann explained that the experience had diminished her initial fears about the visitation. The apostolic visitation of women Religious has been going
CANADA Bishops promote chastity on YouTube
THE CANADIAN bishops have used postings on YouTube to advocate chastity to young people in what they acknowledge is a “sex-obsessed” society, writes Peter Kavanagh. In a pastoral letter issued last week by the Commission for Doctrine of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), they describe chastity
28 | THE TABLET | 5 February 2011
as “a very real challenge, particularly for young people in our country today”, admitting that “the challenge of living chastely in these circumstances is difficult for everyone: single, married or consecrated”. The letter addresses questions of chastity for married couples, noting, “married people who live chastely can have vibrant
sex lives”, but the primary focus is on the young and the single. To that end the CCCB worked with Salt+Light Television, a Canadian Catholic broadcaster, to create 12 videos exploring the issues outlined in “Pastoral Letter to Young People on Chastity”. They are posted at
http://www.youtube.com/watc h?v=dGn4WXZnbxs
on for more than a year, and when it was first announced, it was greeted with fierce protests. Sr Mary Ann wrote that “most of my initial anger was directed at this patriarchal Church of ours”. But the visitors were all Religious women as well, and Sr Mary Ann related that the questions they asked were “good questions – fair, respectful, not intrusive: What is your vocation story? Your min- istry background? What are the strengths of the community? Some concerns you have about
your community? Your personal vision of religious life?” The Vatican has telegraphed its intention not to turn the vis- itation into an inquisition in part by naming an American sympa- thetic to women Religious as Secretary for the Congregation of Religious, Archbishop Joseph Tobin. Upon being named to his Vatican post, Archbishop Tobin said the Holy See must acknowl- edge the anger some women Religious felt when news of the visitation was first announced.
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