By Matters India Reporter
Bengaluru: An open forum of Catholic theologians in India has completed 40 years helping the Church become relevant in a country of multi religions and multi cultures.
The Indian Theological Association (ITA) celebrated its ruby at its annual meeting held at Montfort Spirituality Centre, Bengaluru, capital of the southern Indian state of Karnataka.
The April 26-29 meeting also elected its new office bearers with an expert on Hindu nationalism as president.
Father Vincent Kundukulam, the newly elected president is a professor at St. Joseph’s Pontifical Seminary Aluva, Kerala. The vice president is Kochurani Abraham, a woman theologian based at Kerala’s Kottayam town. Jesuit Father Irudaya Raj is the new secretary and Salesian Father Joy Pulickan the treasurer.
The meeting chose an Executive Committee comprising Jesuit Father Alangaram, Fransalian Father Jacob Parapally, Indian Missionary Society Father Jerome Silvester and Sister D J Margaret, a member of the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco. They will hold the office for three years.
Kochurani Abraham says the meeting conducted “serious and critical deliberations” on the association’s 40 years of contribution to the Indian Church and society.
“It has evaluated critically ITA’s impact on the Indian Church, Universal Church and Indian society and has suggested sign posts to the future,” she told Matters India on May 2.
Abraham said the meeting helped review the association’s past performance and plan for the future against the backdrop of the current situation in Indian society and the Church.
“We looked at the socio-economic political and religious landscape of India today, the threat due to the politicization of religion, the unhealthy nexus between corporates and politicians and the further marginalization of the poor, tribal community, women etc.”
She said they elected Father Kundukulam as the president since he was “a seasoned theologian” who contributed immensely to the association’s growth.
Father Kundukulam, who will turn 55 on May 7, has taught in the Aluva seminary since 1999. For his doctoral thesis, he had chosen “RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or national volunteers’ corps) and Church in India at L’ Institut Catholique de Paris, France. It was part of his subject, “Theology & Religious Sciences, Doctorate in History of Religions & Anthropology.”
For his post-doctoral studies the Trichur archdiocesan priest had selected “The Postmodern Culture in the West and in India and the theological and pastoral responses of the French Church” at University of Sorbonne (Paris IV), France.
Father Kundukulam joined the seminary in 1977 after high school and was ordained a priest ten years later by Bishop Joseph Kundukulam of Trichur.
RSS is the umbrella body for rightwing Hindu groups in the country. Its political arm, the Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian people’s party) currently heads the federal coalition government and rules several states in the country.
The ITA, founded in 1976, helps theologians in India to engage in theological discourses to develop an Asian and Indian Christian theology that embodies the struggles and hopes of people in the region. It fosters research in religion and society and empowers Indian theologians to do contextual theological discourses in Indian/Asian paradigms and praxes in the wider global scenario.
The ITA is an inclusive platform where scholars, social activists, thinkers, religious leaders of all faiths join in developing an Asian theology so that Jesus’ Gospel of “Fullness of Life” gets ‘roots’ and ‘wings’ in the Asian journey towards the Reign of God.