Social Apostolate Headlines
Narrative: John Dayal, All India Christian Council
Kandhamal is deadly beautiful. A tropical forest, but with close mountains and deep valleys, and a climate that can get alpine in winter, without the snow. The topography of this plateau in the middle of the Indian province of Orissa may have saved the lives of tens of thousands of Christians who fled to the forests as mobs with murder, arson and rape on their minds, attacked 300 villages on 25 August 2008. At the peak of the violence, 54,000 men, women and children were hiding in these forests of tall Sal trees, where bear and big cats still abound, and wild elephants can be heard in the dark of the night. Among those 54,000 were the families of perhaps three dozen Catholic priests and twice as many nuns, and two dozen priests themselves, hiding and waiting for the moment the police would come to restore order. For some of them, it came too late. A hundred people may have died there, among them three protestant Pastors and a Catholic priest, Fr Bernard Digal, who was grievously wounded and succumbed to his injuries some time later. A nun, Sister M, as I will call her, was among at least three women raped.
The brutal tragedy however also shed light on how close are the bonds that the local priests have with their flocks. Unlike in many other parts of India where the parish priest may have come from as far as three thousand kilometres, be of a different ethnicity and with a different mother tongue, priests and nuns in Kandhamal are of the soil. The villages that were torched were where they were born, the churches destroyed were the priests too had been baptised, and where they celebrated their First Mass.
There is therefore something remarkable about the Priests and Nuns of Kandhamal, be they Dalits (the so-called ‘untouchables’) or Tribals (the indigenous peoples of India). Some of them, such as Fathers Vijay Naik and Vijay Pradhan, the first a Dalit and the second a Tribal, have doctorates from Roman universities. Many others chose to study social work, and were active at the grassroots. They helped galvanize a people who for centuries had suffered from a situation close to serfdom in which food was rare and education unknown, where women were vulnerable and children could barely hope to grow to adulthood. No wonder the work of the priests and nuns had angered vested interests, the local equivalent of big business, and the power brokers. When the violence broke out, the families of the priests were particular targets. The brother of Fr Mrityunjay, the secretary of the Archbishop of the region, was forcibly converted to Hinduism by a murderous gang shaving off the hair on his head and forcing cow dung and urine down his throat. The youth suffered in silence, but was back in the church in the refugee tent as soon as it was humanly possible.
As elsewhere in the world, the clergy and women religious in India too face occasional charges of financial wrongdoings, but those in Kandhamal can easily be said to be crystal clean. The family of father Bernard Digal, who was Treasurer of the Archdiocese and became its first martyr in the violence, lived in a mud and thatch hut when I visited them some years ago. After the violence, they were among thousands living in a government refigure camp. They still have to return to their village.
I salute the Priests and Nuns of Kandhamal.
John Dayal
Secretary General,
All India Christian Council
Secunderabad Andhra Pradesh, India
http://groups.google.com/group/JohnDayal
www.johndayal.com http://www.christiancouncil.in/
AJAN: Father Michael Czerny, a member of the English Canada Province, coordinator of the African Jesuit AIDS Network (AJAN), has been named personal assistant to the newly appointed President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson of Ghana. The new AJAN coordinator is Father Paterne-Auxene Mombe, of the West African Province.
Society of Jesus: Father General has named Fr Jorge Serrano, of the Province of Colombia, Assistant to the General Treasurer for Development as of February 2010. Fr Serrano will support the continuing development of communication and collaboration among Mission Procurator, Development, and Treasurer’s Offices to promote more effective ways of raising funds and donations for the works of the Society.
Cambodia: Jesuit Services Cambodia reports that the International Convention on Cluster Munitions has now been ratified by 30 countries, which means that it will become binding international law on 1 September 2010. The director of JS Cambodia, Sister Denise Coghlan, had been lobbying tirelessly governments as part of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC).
United Nations: In March 2010, the Commission on the Status of Women will undertake a fifteen-year review of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. “Muévete por la Igualdad... es de Justicia” (Get moving for equality, it’s about justice), a campaign co-organised by the Spanish Jesuit NGO Entreculturas, will have representatives in New York for this event to lobby with both the Spanish government and the UN on women’s rights. Read the Entreculturas blog from New York here (in Spanish): http://entreculturas2010.wordpress.com/
Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat: The publication that explains the new Ignatian Advocacy Networks is now available online at http://www.ignatianadvocacy.org/ in English, French and Spanish. The booklet includes articles on the characteristics, roots and spirituality of Ignatian advocacy, and background information on the advocacy networks: Migration, Peace and Human Rights, Ecology, Governance of Natural and Mineral Resources and Education.
Mexico: In January 2009, Alberta Alcántara Juan and Teresa González Cornelio were unjustly sentenced to 21 years in prison. The Jesuit human rights centre Centro ProDH in Mexico City has taken on their case and Amnesty International (AI) has now recognized the two women as Prisoners of Conscience. Write a letter before 15 March – more information here: http://www.amnesty.org/library/info/AMR41/012/2010/en
Canada: The Jesuit Forum for Social Faith and Justice in the CDA province (Jesuits in English Canada) has a brand new website which will be launched at the beginning of March: http://jesuitforum.ca/
Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat: Number 103 of Promotio Iustititae on the theme of Reconciliation will be placed online in the next few days at the following link: http://sjweb.info/sjs/pjnew/indexPreview.cfm?LangTop=1. Subscribe to the newsletter to receive every issue by email here: http://sjweb.info/sjs/pjnew/pjsubscribe.cfm?LangTop=1.
Philippines: Environmental Science for Social Change, a Jesuit research institute that promotes environmental sustainability and social justice through the integration of scientific methodologies and social processes, has a new website where you can subscribe to their weekly newsletter, ESSC News (in English). http://esscnews.org.ph
.Malta: One of the suggestions in the Jesuit Seven Year Plan for the environment is this: “We will run our retreat centres in an ecologically sensitive way.” The Maltese Jesuits at Mount Saint Joseph retreat centre have been fulfilling this commitment since 2006 through a tree nursery in its garden. 800 trees have been planted here and all retreatants are encouraged to leave a donation so that more may be planted. Read the Seven Year Plan here: http://www.sjweb.info/documents/sjs/docs/Jesuit_7yearplan.pdf
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