分类： bharat

Nuns and Muslim supporters demand the arrest of Bishop Franco Mulakkal, who is accused of raping a nun, outside the High Court in Kochi in the southern Indian state of Kerala on Sept. 13, 2018. A nun who supported the protests has been dismissed from her congregation because her lifestyle violated congregation norms. (AFP photo)

An Indian Catholic nun, dismissed from her congregation in southern Kerala after protesting against a bishop accused of rape, has had her appeal against the expulsion rejected by the Vatican.

Sister Lucy Kalapura was dismissed Aug. 5 for failing to show the “needed remorse” for what congregation officials called a lifestyle that violated congregation norms and infringed on the vow of poverty.

Sister Kalapura, a member of the Franciscan Clarist Congregation, challenged the decision, saying officials only moved after she publicly urged action against Bishop Franco Mulakkal, accused of raping a nun multiple times between 2014 and 2016.

But the Vatican has now rejected the appeal filed to its Congregation for Oriental Churches. 

The 54-year-old nun, informed of the decision in a letter, said she has been denied justice, alleging church officials did not contact her to get her side of the story.

“I am not going to leave the convent. The lifestyle I lead is as per the rules and regulations,” she told the BBC.

“I am allowed a second appeal, but I don’t see any point in doing that since they have made up their mind. I will now go to court on behalf of all the people who are being suppressed and facing illegal behavior from authorities of the congregation.”

Sister Kalapura joined protests organized by nuns from another order and dozens of their supporters in 2018 seeking action against the bishop, in a rare show of dissent against the Church.

Other nuns have accused the Church in Kerala as well as Vatican officials of turning a blind eye to the allegations against the bishop.

The bishop was charged in April this year with wrongful confinement, rape of a woman incapable of giving consent, causing grievous bodily harm during rape, unnatural offense and criminal intimidation. He denies any wrongdoing.

Church sources have maintained that Sister Kalapura’s dismissal was not a case of vindictive action. She was dismissed for defiantly breaking the congregation’s rules, including spending her salary on buying a car and other personal items. She teaches in a government-aided school.

She also spent $1,000 to publish a book against the advice of her superiors and ignored warnings against appearing in media and giving interviews explaining her support for the protesting nuns.

She received a canonical warning letter in January over her actions, but had previously received other warnings, urging her to change her ways in order to stay living in the congregation.

Christians — mostly Catholic — are the third largest religious group in India, after Hindus and Muslims.

The Catholic Church has been rocked by scandals of sexual abuse by clergy across the world in recent years. Pope Francis publicly addressed the issue of sexual abuse of nuns by clerics for the first time in February, saying reports of wrongdoing are taken seriously.

Pope Francis declared Indian nun Mariam Thresia Chiramel Mankidiyan a saint, during a ceremony at the Vatican on Oct. 13 that drew tens of thousands of pilgrims from around the world.

Huge banners of St. Mariam Thresia and four other newly canonized saints were hung at the front of St. Peter’s Basilica ahead of the open-air ceremony attended by government ministers, a member of the British royal family and throngs of faithful.

Born in 1876 into a wealthy family in southern India, St. Mariam Thresia insisted instead on living a life of piety from a young age, the Vatican News reported. She slept on a gravel floor rather than a bed and was committed to serving the poor and the sick in southern Kerala state.

“In imitation of Jesus, she helped the poor, nursed the sick, visited and comforted the lonely people of her parish,” Vatican News said of Thresia who founded the Congregation of the Holy Family, a religious order, in 1914.   

“She was also blessed with the stigmata but kept it secret to avoid attention. Her entire existence was tormented by demons and she offered her sufferings for the remission of the sins of the world,” the news service said. Thresia died in 1926 aged 50.

Among the audience at Sunday’s ceremony in Rome was an Indian family and their son, whose life Thresia is credited with saving in 2009 during a miracle performed soon after his birth.

The boy, born prematurely, was suffering from respiratory illness and was prescribed a medicine that needed to be administered through a special ventilator. With no such equipment available for the boy, doctors feared the worst, Sister Udaya, superior general of the Congregation of the Holy Family said.

“On the third day, the child was gasping, and doctors explained it was going to be fatal. So, the parents and the grandparents, who very fond of Mariam Thresia, were praying very hard,” she told Vatican News.

The grandmother placed a religious relic on the baby as they prayed to St. Mariam Thresia, and there was a sudden and “drastic improvement” soon after, the baby recovered “and the doctors said it cannot be explained medically,” she said.

St. Mariam Thresia was declared blessed by Pope St. John Paul II in 1999, and Pope Francis later authorized a decree, recognizing the miracle through her intercession, clearing her way for sainthood.

Sister Udaya said sisters of the order have since been preparing for the canonization ceremony, including with special prayers and a religious retreat. But, in keeping with St. Mariam Thresia’s work, they have mostly focused on charitable acts, including housing projects and helping students, the sick and others.

The other four canonized by the pope are St. John Henry Newman, the British theologian, poet and cardinal (1801-1890); Brazilian St. Maria Rita Lopes Pontes (1914-1992); St. Marguerite Bays, a Swiss laywoman and mystic (1815 – 1879) and St. Josephine Vannini, the Italian co-founder of the Daughters of St. Camillus (1859 -1911)

India’s top vegetable oil trade body has asked its members to stop buying palm oil from Malaysia, an unprecedented call aimed at helping New Delhi punish the country for criticizing India over its policy towards Kashmir.

The Oct. 21 directive by the Solvent Extractors’ Association of India (SEAI) shows how nationalist sentiments can affect international business, and is a big blow to Malaysia, the world’s second largest producer and exporter of palm oil after Indonesia.

India was Malaysia’s third-largest export destination in 2018 for palm oil and palm-based products worth 6.84 billion ringgit ($1.63 billion). Vegetable oil contributed 2.8 percent of Malaysia’s gross domestic product last year and 4.5 percent to total exports.

“Our government has not taken kindly to the unprovoked pronouncements by the Malaysian prime minister and is contemplating some retaliatory action,” SEAI President Atul Chaturvedi said in a statement carrying a note to its members.

“It would be in fitness of things, as responsible Indian vegetable oil industry, we avoid purchasing of palm oil from Malaysia till such time clarity on the way forward emerges from Indian government.”

He said the guidance was issued in its own interest as well as a mark of solidarity with the country.

Reuters reported that India was considering curbing imports of some products from Malaysia, including palm oil, after Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said last month that India had “invaded and occupied” Kashmir, a disputed Muslim-majority region also claimed by Pakistan.

India stripped its portion of the Kashmir valley of statehood and autonomy on Aug. 5.

Some Indian traders said refiners had already stopped buying Malaysian palm oil for shipment in November and December, fearing higher import taxes or other measures. In any case, household palm oil consumption falls in India during winter as the tropical oil solidifies at lower temperature.

India’s government has rebuked Malaysia for its stance on Kashmir but has not commented on any trade measures. India’s trade ministry declined to comment.