Indian Catholic bishops blink yet again

By John S. Shilshi

Panaji, April 10, 2025: The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), regarded as a father figure by an estimated 23 million Catholics in this country, is not meeting expectations, particularly when it comes to making crucial decisions.

The organization may attempt to downplay some of the significant mistakes it has made in recent years as ‘aberrations,’ but in actuality, these mistakes have caused significant harm to Mother Church in this rapidly evolving socio-political landscape in the country.

The greatest among them all is the recent decision to support the Waqf Board (Amendment) Bill 2025. The decision was unworthy of CBCI’s stature, egregious, untimely, and without merit. That decision will have far-reaching ramifications in years to come, no matter what the people in charge of the organization may think.

This decision didn’t simply match up to the organization’s goal of promoting teamwork to meet the spiritual and social needs of diverse communities in this country.

One understands that the CBCI’s decision to mobilize support in favor of the Waqf Board (Amendment) Bill 2025 was triggered by an ongoing local issue in Kerala, where a section of the Catholic population are victims of a land dispute with the local Waqf Board. The CBCI believes that if the law is amended, it will help about 600 Christian families in central Kerala’s Munambam village, who live on land claimed by a Muslim charitable organization.

Should that be the case, has the CBCI relegated itself to the status of a local bishops’ council and begun addressing local issues? Is the CBCI not a pan-India body that is supposed to deal with high-level policy matters? Or did the organization decide to support the bill to be in the good book of the ruling dispensation? These are some of the questions that are troubling the minds of Catholics in India.

In the past, too, there were instances where the organization faltered, and the consequences of which are still disturbing the Church as a community.

For example, in 2023, when Manipur mayhem uprooted thousands of people, Christians and Hindus alike, Cardinal Oswald Gracias, in a video message, said what happened in Manipur was not a religious confrontation but a fight between two ‘tribal’ groups, without realizing that though beside other factors leading to the unprecedented mayhem, the term ‘tribal’ was the immediate flashpoint of the confrontation.

The naïve use of the term to describe the two warring communities could have embroiled him in some legal complications. This apart, the former president’s inaccurate remarks attracted significant attention, with BJP spokespersons and other opinion makers of the Sang Parivar liberally quoting him in all talk shows and discussions.

Again in 2024, when the Kutumba Surakshya Parishad (KSP), a fundamentalist organization based in Assam and an affiliate of the RSS, threatened to attack Christian institutes that displayed pictures of Christ and saints and also demanded that priests and nuns cease wearing cassocks and habits on school campuses, the CBCI reacted irresponsibly without proper understanding of regional compulsions.

It issued 13-page directives, outlining dos and don’ts. Most regrettable among them were “need to respect all faith traditions without any discrimination,” “we should not force our religious traditions on students of other faiths,” “have a separate inter-religious prayer room (Sarvadharma Prarthanalay) on the school premises,” “celebrate all the important religious festivals,” implying that the Catholic institutes were indeed converting students from other faiths on institution campuses as alleged.

All that the CBCI served through these directives were the divisive forces, who gleefully claimed that what they were alleging, after all, stands vindicated. Priests and nuns in charge of these institutes were fuming only to be subdued by their oath of discipline and obedience.

Currently, the Catholic Church and Christians in general are dealing with more pressing issues. One among them is the move to resurrect a legislation—the Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act 1978, a law that has remained dormant for 46 years, which successive governments opted to sideline, recognizing its potential to disturb peace.

The law specifically aims to prevent Christians from evangelizing and the practice of faith. Christians in that state had taken to the streets to demand the closure of the controversial legislation. However, the CBCI has remained silent on this issue thus far. On the other hand, the organization quickly embraced the Waqf Board (Amendment) Bill 2025 and decide to lobby in favour without even weighing the merits and demerits, and how such move would impact the fate of the Catholic church.

It would be recalled that in November 2024, the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court proposed a regulatory body to oversee church properties akin to temple boards and waqf boards for Hindus and Muslims. The proposal raised concerns within Christian circles, particularly the Catholic community.

Today when the Waqf Board (Amendment) Bill 2025 came with a suggestion to include at least two non-Muslim members in the board which goes against provisions under article 26 of the constitution, esteemed CBCI latched on to it and campaigned in the Bill’s favour. Can this be termed as prudence?

The CBCI, therefore, needs reminding that several instances of property disputes between Church bodies in the country are indications of our houses not being in order. Consequently, that judicial proposal becoming a reality is very much a possibility. In other words, the lurking government regulatory men knocking on Christian doors are not far away.

When that happens, the betrayal of a fellow minority is likely to prove costly. For now, the bill has moved from the parliament to the court, but the Catholic relationship with Muslims seems to have been permanently soured by none other than the CBCI. Can, in their wisdom think of doing something in the interim? Only time will tell us.

(The author is a retired IPS officer and Founding member of the North East Catholic Research Forum. He can be reached at johnshilshi@gmail.com. Views expressed in the article are personal).