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C.16 CATHOLIC BISHOPS’ CONFERENCE OF INDIA:
30th General Body Meeting
“THE CHURCH’S ROLE FOR A BETTER INDIA’’
Introduction:
sabv 2012
Bangalore, 2 February 2012
In the name of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace,
I warmly greet your Eminences, my Lord Archbishops and Bishops,
and all of you: my Brothers and sisters, taking part in the 30 th General
Body Meeting of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India. Thanks
you for the invitation, for the warm welcome, and for the opportunity
to join you to listen together to “what the Spirit is saying to the
Churches” (Rev. 2:7). I understand that, with the New Evangelization
in mind, you want to discuss the Church’s mission in serving the
country under the theme, “The Church’s role for a better India”.
How, then, is the Church responding, pastorally and socio-pastorally,
to the many needs of God’s people throughout this vast and varied
country as an expression of the realization of the mandate of our
Lord to establish also here in India the Kingdom of God, not in
order to be self-satisfied but in order that the Catholic people of
God might contribute more to a better India?
This, indeed, is the Church in India taking up the call of
Pope Paul VI that Christian communities analyze with objectivity
the situation which is proper to their own country, to shed on it the
light of the Gospel’s unalterable words, draw from the Social Teaching
of the Church, developed in the course of history, principles of
reflection, criteria of judgment and directives of action. It also
devolves on them to identify with the help of the Holy Spirit - in
communion with Bishops in charge and in dialogue with other
Christian brothers and with all men of good will - the options and
commitments which are called for in order to bring about the social,
political and economic transformations/changes seen in many cases
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to be urgently needed. 1 For, “ the joy and hope, the grief and
anguish of men of our time, especially of those who are poor or
afflicted in any way, are the joy and hope, the grief and anguish
of the followers of Christ as well”. 2
The Indian Situation (res socialis Indiana), Yearning for a
better India:
As you may all know, Cardinal Leornard Sandri just
completed a visit here to the Syro-Malabar and the Syro-Malankara
Churches. In an interview with the Vatican Radio (19/01/12), on his
return, the Cardinal praised the filial devotion of the people to the
Holy Father, the joyous vitality of their worship and the atmosphere
of religious tolerance (Kerala area), which, regrettably, is not
verifiable in other parts of the country. The denial of religious freedom,
persecutions and violent attacks on Christians cause great fear in
other parts. “For the Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara Church
in India,” in the words of the Cardinal, “faith is not
abstract.....Theirs is a faith that works and that transforms itself
into concrete help for the needy: the homeless, the outcast, the
jobless, the hungry, the sick etc.
The latter category of indigents and very many more, and
your various initiatives in your ecclesiastical circumscriptions to help
them and to deal with the political, religious/traditional, social and
economic structures which are responsible for them were profusely
discussed with the staff of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace
during your Ad Limina visits. To a large extent, they also did constitute,
alongside the challenges of primal religious traditions to
evangelization, the challenges of development and modernity, migration,
corruption and bad governance, the burdens which you bore to the
Synod for Asia, and the backdrop against which the Synod proceedings
were held more than a decade ago. The Lineamenta’s pages on
“Asian Realities”, the Instrumentum Laboris’ paragraphs on
“Distinctive Characteristics: Socio-economic Situations” and the
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