By Matters India Reporter
New Delhi: The All India Catholic Union (AICU), a 99-year-association of Catholic lay people in the country, has called on the Jharkhand and federal government stop harassing the Missionaries of Charity Sisters, a religious order founded by Mother Teresa.
“There seems but little doubt that the government of India, egged on by the religious nationalism of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) has decided to teach a lesson to the Christian community in India by singling out for posthumous criminalization the global icon Saint Teresa, a Nobel laureate but perhaps more important, an Indian citizen given its highest national honour of Bharat Ratna,” Dr. John Dayal, former national president and official spokesman of the AICU, which will be a 100 year old in 2019, told Matters India.
AICU, which is the largest association of Catholic lay people in India, founded in 1919, now represents almost 18 million Catholics who belong to all three ritual Churches in India – Latin, Syro-Malabar, and Syro-Malankara. It has 120 dioceses and district units.
“This is obvious in the union government ordering an inquiry into every ashram run by the Teresa sisters of the Missionaries of Charity across the country caring to abandoned infants, unwed mothers, homeless women and the sick and dying,” Dayal said.
He was reacting in the aftermath of federal government ordered all Mother Teresa care homes inspected after nun arrested in baby trafficking racket in Ranchi, capital of Jharkhand on July 17. The move comes after authorities shut down a home that provides shelter for pregnant, unmarried women after a nun and a worker there were arrested for baby trafficking.
“An obedient media, terrified officials and political appointees in the Jharkhand state government’s women and child welfare departments have picked up a case of alleged exchange of a baby for adoption on illicit payment of money into a monstrous media storm. In the process, the government’s religious-nationalist supporters, the Hindutva groups as they are known, have accused Teresa’s Missionaries of Charities and indeed the entire church in India of forcible conversions to Christianity, massive trafficking in children and other crimes. They have also resurrected a rejected chant of Vatican’s interference in Indian political affairs,” Dayal said.
The Missionaries of Charity following the footsteps of Saint Mother Teresa cares for the poor, destitute and the afflicted since 1950.
Today, there are 5,167 sisters, both active and contemplative, with 760 houses in 139 countries. The Missionaries of Charity have 244 houses in India including those in Jharkhand. Its works include running homes for leprosy patients, TB patients, AIDS patients, physically and mentally challenged children and adults, night shelters, indoor primary healthcare facilities, homes for women in distress, girls in danger, abandoned pregnant women, and for women whom poverty and starvation have driven into the streets.
The Congregation of Missionaries of Charity vows to continue their whole-hearted and free service to the poorest of the poor, by serving the needy and vulnerable even in the middle of the unprecedented and unfounded criticism that it faces today.
“Teresa in particular and the church, in general, have been a thorn in the side of land mafias and hers pressurizing the governments to change the environment and land laws to help transfer forest tracks to corporate groups and business houses,” Dayal said.
“The missionaries’ work with the marginalized in education, health and empowerment have also made the tribals and Dalits stand up to usury and exploitation. We have called on state and union governments to stop this, and take action against groups and mobs that attack nuns, priests, and Christian organizations,” AICU spokesperson said.