By Matters India Reporter
Poondi, October 12, 2019: Young members of a forum for Christians of Dalit origin have expressed anguish over Pope Francis’ failure to take up the plight of their community with the Indian bishops.
“Dalit Christians were eagerly expecting that the Holy Father would address the caste issue in the Indian Church and admonish bishops to do away with all the caste practices within the Church” during the prelates’ recent ad limina visit, says the youth wing of the National Council of Dalit Christians (NCDC), an ecumenical forum.
The Pope had addressed “all the issues like environment, migrants, indigenous people,” but not the plight of the Dalit Christians, a burning issue in India, regretted the NCDC youth wing that on October 12 gathered at a Marian shrine in Poondi village of Tamil Nadu state’s Thanjavur district.
The Pope’s indifference to the Dalit Christian plight, they pointed out, is because of the absence of Dalit representatives in the Vatican Curia and the Pope’s office.
“Many memoranda and petitions were sent to the Holy See, but all were vain,” said a press note from the meeting attended by some 600 people.
The Dalit Christians were also disappointed that the bishops who gave interview to the media ignored the caste discrimination among the Indian Christians. “Lack of Dalit Origin bishops is the main reason why this prime issue continues to be neglected.”
Among India’s 200 active Catholic bishops only 12 Bishops who are from Dalit communities.
The Pope and the Indian Church ought to apologize for caste discrimination and untouchability practice such as allowing separate cemeteries, allowing separate carriers for bodies to cemetery and building and allotting separate churches for Dalits and upper castes.
The youth have met to seek ways to end the caste system and the practice of untouchability within the Church.
The young people pointed out that the Catholic Church that apologized to indigenous peoples around the world for atrocities done to them during the colonial era has done nothing to end the continued discrimination of Dalit Christians within the community.
“The Catholic Church had apologized to indigenous people of Canada and South America for the mistakes committed by the Church during the time of Colonization. In the same way recently, as per the Amazon conference news, the Catholic Church had has taken effort to save the Amazon indigenous people’s Human Rights and from the environment exploitation,” notes a press release from the Dalit meet.
However, the Holy See under Pope Francis and Christian denominations in India, including the Catholic Church, have taken no steps to eradicate the practice of untouchability among Christians and Church institutions in the country, the Dalit youth bemoan.
As a solution, they have demanded equal representation of Dalit lay people and the clergy in the Church administration.
Maintaining that the age-old caste system remains a blot in the Indian society, the Dalit youth regret that some main line and independent Churches in India continue to encourage untouchability indirectly.
After entering India in the first century, Christianity had come under the control of a particular group that refused to spread Christ’s message to others in the country.
This ended only when missionaries preached Christianity to all communities during the European colonization and helped attract many, especially the dalit and tribal people, to Jesus, the youth noted.
The dominant upper caste people who became Christians brought with them the caste system and oppressive mindset and captured power in the Church.
Since then the minority upper caste groups have occupied the Church hierarchy, keeping away Dalit people, who form 70 percent of Christians in India.
Only 5 percent of Dalit have become bishops of dioceses or provincials or superiors general of religious congregations.
Some Dalit Christians, who are educated, theologically, spiritually and ethically correct, loyal to the Church, and morally upright have been kept out of power structure because of a wrong human screening and selection process done by caste discriminatory mindset, the youth point out.
Dalit Christian movements launched in the late 1970s have questioned the caste discrimination and untouchability practices among the Christians of India, they say.