By Matters India Reporter
Kochi: The Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council on September 24 expressed regret over a court remanding a prelate to police custody for 14 days in an alleged rape case.
“A series of events which took place of late have become a matter of great pain for the Catholic Church,” says a press note from the apex body of the bishops belonging to Latin, Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara rites in Kerala.
The police in the southern Indian state on September 21 arrested Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jalandhar after three days of interrogation on a complaint from a member of the Missionaries of Jesus that the prelate had subjected her to rape and unnatural sex 13 times between 2014 and 2016.
Mulakkal thus became the first bishop in India to be arrested and remanded. A lower court in Palai on September 24 sent him to police custody for 14 days. The bishop’s bail application will be heard by the Kerala High Court on September 27.
The Kerala bishops said they did not support either the petitioner or the accused.
However, they continued to frown on the protests by some nuns and priests for justice. Five members of the Missionaries of Jesus staged a 14-day sit-in at Kochi demanding Mulakkal’s arrest. They wound up the protest on September 22.
The bishops’ note said their protest in the street had given an occasion for enemies of the Church to attack the Church and its leaders and disdain the Sacraments, causing “much pain to all those who the Church.”
They expressed the hope their faithful and the public would realize the protest was not in keeping with the Christian values, Catholic Church’s “rightful interests” and their congregations’ statutes.
The bishops also declined to comment on the case which is sub judice. They reiterated their demand for further enquiry and trial of the case without bias and pressure from any corner.
“It is hoped that the truth will come to light in the court and that the accused will get sufficient opportunity to prove his innocence, and that if the accusations is proved right the culprit will get the due punishment which the law envisages,” the press note said.
The bishops protested the trend to put down the Church on account of one individual. They alleged a “hidden agenda” of vested interests to use an allegation against a bishop to implicate the Church and all prelates. ”It is not clear whether it is jealousy or anger against the Church that leads these people to attack the Church violently,” they added.
They pointed out the Church’s tremendous involvement in public sphere through its services in educational, medical and social sectors. “It is unjust to take the Church as a laughing stock on the basis of an unproved accusation against one of the bishops, while so many of its bishops, priests and nuns are living saintly lives,” they added.