Bangalore: The need for “dialogue” was stressed on the second day of the biennial plenary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI).

Speakers were unanimous in saying that dialogue was essential in solving problems affecting society and the community in the country. “The crying need of the hour,” they added, was to continue dialoguing, despite various challenges.

The plenary began on March 2 at St. John’s National Academy of Health Sciences, Bangalore, southern India. The main theme of the assembly is “The response of the Church in India to the present day challenges.”

Meenal, professor of Philosophy at the Bombay University, who presented the Hindu perspective of the theme, commended the two invaluable Christian principles of unconditional love and total service to humanity.

She explained the Vedic principles of Vasundhara Kudumbam (World in a family) and Truth being one, though expressed in various forms.

Inam Das, a Muslim entrepreneur from Pune, noted that the Constitution of India provides special rights to minorities and all minorities should claim those rights. He emphasized the greater need for staying together peacefully with the people of various religious backgrounds.

Fr. Mohan Das, a Catholic priest and professor, wanted dialogue as the new way of being a Church. It is the need of the day, he said.

Multiplicity of religious traditions is a bountiful gift of God, added the Divine Word priest who sought internal dialogue in the church for effective inter religious dialogue.

Sr. Shalini Mulackal, professor of theology at Vidyajyoti College, New Delhi, spoke on the challenges to the Church in India in its efforts to uplift the poor and the downtrodden.

Guiherne Vaz, an educationist from Mumbai, analyzed the present economic and educational challenges that the church in India is facing.

He observed that the monopoly of the Church in the field of education is no more a reality, and so the Church should thoroughly rethink its involvement in the field of education.

More than 180 bishops and other Church leaders attending the plenary heard the activity reports of the various commissions of the CBCI.

The CBCI was founded at the Metropolitans’ Conference held in Chennai (then Madras) in 1944.

The secretariat operated out of Bangalore until 1962, and since then New Delhi has been its base.