_WORLD WATCH______________________________
________________India_________________
Christian community shaken by murders
Extortionists prey on missionaries
The brutal murder of three Salesian missionaries sent shock waves through the northeastern region of India in May. The victims—the entire staff of a Salesian novitiate at Ngarian hills, near the city of Imphal—were shot on the evening of May 15 on the volleyball court of the novitiate.
More than 1,000 Catholic schools in the seven tiny states of northeastern India remained closed on May 18 in protest against the killings. On the same day, over 25,000 people joined a protest demonstration in Shillong—the capital of the Meghalaya state, in which a majority of residents are Christian. Catholic leaders encouraged the protests as a means of drawing national attention to the harassment of missionaries in the region, where ethnic militant groups are effectively challenging the authority of the state.
“We do not know what to do. We are helpless,” Father Thomas Mulayinkal, Salesian provincial of Dimapur, confessed. Church-run schools have been regularly pestered by extortion demands from ethnic militant groups. Since 1992, three priests manning Catholic schools in northeastern India have been murdered, administrators have been kidnapped, and schools have been looted when their administrators refused to pay extortion demands.
Prior to the May killings, the most recent victim of the militants had been Father Shajan Jacob Chittilappilly, vice principal of a diocesan school, who was shot dead last December. Another diocesan priest escaped with bullet wounds in a similar attack in February. In response, the Imphal archdiocese convened a meeting of the eight major Catholic schools, including two run by the Salesians in the Imphal valley. The Catholic educators agreed that they would refuse to respond to extortion demands. That policy prompted a new rash of threats.
The latest assault on the missionaries seems to be part of “a larger design to unleash a reign of terror,” said Father Jonas Kerketta, the Salesian vice-provincial of Dimapur addressing a press conference at Guwahati on May 19. The Salesians of the Dimapur province point out that last week’s attack was a new development in the campaign against Catholic targets. In the past, the militant groups have attacked schools that refused to meet their extortion demands. But this was an attack on “a house of prayer,” suggesting a new aggressive strategy against Catholic targets.
Beatification soon for Mother Teresa?
First stage of process is nearly complete
The archbishop of Calcutta has suggested that Mother Teresa could be beatified before the end of this year—although Vatican officials consider that prospect unlikely.
Archbishop Henry Sebastian D’Souza of Calcutta told the Fides news service, “I would not be at all surprised” if the founder of the Missionaries of Charity were beatified this year. The archbishop has already announced that the investigation of Mother Teresa’s cause in his archdiocese will soon be completed, and the results will be conveyed to Rome.
At the Vatican, however, officials have indicated that the process is not likely to move ahead so quickly. Ordinarily, a beatification occurs no sooner than 12 years after the death of the individual. In the case of Mother Teresa, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints—with the explicit approval of Pope John Paul II—has waived the usual 5-year waiting period before launching the process. Still, the careful process by which the Church moves to confirm the sanctity of a candidate for beatification is rarely rushed.
There is little doubt in Rome that Mother Teresa will soon be beatified. The only question is the timing. The Calcutta archdiocese will formally complete the local phase of the investigation on August 15 of this year. The process now moves to Rome, where a postulator for the cause will prepare a positio—a summary document on the life and spirituality of Mother Teresa. In this stage, too, the cause of Mother Teresa may be moved ahead of other causes. Ordinarily, a member of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints disclosed to reporters, each new case must, in effect, “get in line.” But Pope John Paul—along with thousands of Catholics around the world—has expressed a special interest in the speedy progress of this cause.
Once the positio has been finished, the Congregation would produce a formal judgment, to be ratified by the Pope, that Mother Teresa had lived a life of “heroic virtue.” Several miracles attributed to the intercession of Mother Teresa have already been verified by the Calcutta archdiocese, Archbishop D’Souza reported. Assuming that the Vatican also verifies the authenticity of at least one miracle, that would fulfill the next requirement for beatification.
Speaking to Fides, the archbishop described the atmosphere in Calcutta, the city whose name she bore and in which Mother Teresa did so much of her work. “The people here have already made Mother Teresa a saint in their hearts. They are now waiting with great expectation and excitement for the Holy See to confirm something they already believe: that she was a saintly woman, loved also by non-Christians.”