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Pope’s ‘foreign policy’ Easter message: What got included, what got left out

March 31, 2024

ROME – A pope’s Easter Sunday Urbi et Orbi blessing, meaning “to the city and the world,” is generally understood to be one of his premier foreign policy statements of the year, a sort of 365-degree review of the global situation. Which issues and hotspots a pontiff chooses to highlight, therefore – and, equally, which he chooses

Hindu nationalists threaten Catholic school over Ash Wednesday observance

February 13, 2024

MUMBAI – A Catholic school in western India has requested police protection after members of a Hindu nationalist group known for staging aggressive “reconversion” ceremonies announced the intention to “by hook or crook” conduct a Hindu ritual known as Saraswati Puja at the school on Ash Wednesday. Saraswati Puja is a ritual performed in honour

The Hindutva threat to India’s Christians

June 14, 2022

When it was established in 1947, the modern state of India offered the secular alternative to decidedly Islamic Pakistan. Yes, India was the Hindu-majority carve-out from the British Raj, while Pakistan (which comprised what is now Bangladesh and modern-day Pakistan under 1971) was to be the homeland of the Subcontinent’s Muslims, but for years India

Indian Catholic archbishop criticises Christian missionary survey plan

October 26, 2021

Bengaluru, India, Oct 25, 2021 / 04:30 am A proposed survey of Christian missionaries and their places of worship could lead to church workers being “unfairly targeted,” a Catholic archbishop in India has said. Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore made the statement on Oct. 15 in response to media reports that the state government of Karnataka, in

On Pilgrimage with Mark Hix

June 01, 2021

Where would you go? A few years ago I was due to go to Southern India. We’d planned to stay somewhere quite remote that you could only reach by boat. The plan was to spend time fishing and to come up with new recipe ideas. I’ve never been to India before and I like the

India warns US tech giants amid ongoing face-off with Twitter

February 12, 2021

India’s IT minister has cautioned US-based tech firms amid an ongoing face face-off with Twitter over content linked to the farmer protests in New Delhi.

Pope Francis prays for victims of Indian flood

February 10, 2021

At his weekly General Audience, Pope Francis prayed for and “expressed [his] closeness” to the victims of flooding in northern India. Over 30 people have died and nearly 200 more are reported missing after flash floods burst a dam in the state of Uttarakhand on Sunday. Reportedly caused by the separation of a glacier, the

Indian government threaten Twitter with “penal action” for unblocking ‘farmer genocide’ hashtag

February 03, 2021

Today, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology threatened Twitter with legal action for unblocking content "designed to inflame passions" about the ongoing farmer protests.