By Jose Kavi
New Delhi, Sept 15, 2023: A Catholic priest has died by suicide for unknown reasons in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
“It is with a heavy heart that announce the death of Fr Anil Francis of our diocese, who ended his life by suicide,” says press statement from Father Sabu Puthenparambil, public relations officer of the Sagar Syro-Malabar diocese.
The September 15 statement says the priest was working as the manager of St Alphonsa Academy at Garhakota, a town in Sagar district, some 50 km east of Sagar.
A day earlier, the “Sagar Vani” (Voice of Sagar) reported that Father Francis’ body was found hanging from a tree at C H I Village Thopkhana Garaj Road in Sagar Cantonment area, earlier in the day.
The police have sent the body for autopsy to the Government Hospital in Sagar, some 170 km northeast of Bhopal, the state capital.
The 40-year-old priest was ordained a priest on April 17, 2013.
The diocese’s statement says the priest had come to the Bishop’s House in Sagar September 13, to attend a monthly prayer meeting the next day.
“However, he was found missing from Thursday morning, and the sad news about his tragic end came to us at about 3:30 pm,” the statement narrates.
The police, it adds, have started a probe into the case and “the diocese is fully cooperating with them in the matter.”
The diocese says the priest was apparently under tension and pressure over a First Information Report lodged against him for a post on Manipur he shared on social media.
The Sagar Vani reported that the priest had become a Catholic as a teenager and that his father Ramesh Ahir and other family members remain Hindu and live in a village near Ratona in Sagar district.
A suicide note found on the priest’s body reportedly requests that his body be given to his parents who would conduct his last rites according to the Hindu customs.
“We also realize that in a suicide note, he had expressed his wish t cremate his body,” says the diocese’s statement.
The priest was reportedly transferred some 18 months ago to St Thomas School in Udaipura, 110 km south of Sagar.
“We are extremely pained and sad over the death of Fr Anil Francis who was known for his commitment to the works given to him and dedicated to the values preached by him,” the diocese says.
The diocese says it shares the pain of the priest’s family and offers them its “heartfelt condolences.” It also prays to God to grant the family the strength to “overcome this agonizing moment they go through.”
This is not the age that a person, that too a priest, must commit suicide. This sad incident, as well as other suicides by young priests, must make the Catholic Prelates and the Formators to do a sincere introspection, find out the root causes, address them and initiate appropriate preventive measures.
This seems to be another case of misplaced ardour and over zealous proselytizing with a tragic end.
His desire to be cremated according to Hindu rites would indicate that he himself was not comfortable about his religious conversion and subsequent priestly ordination.
Sagar is now a Syro Malabar eparchy. What cultural affinity does it have to central India?