Bishop’s Message
Dear Fathers, Sisters and Brothers, With the hope that you had a graceful celebration of Easter, I wish all of you that your hearts may be filled with the love and peace of the Risen Lord. “Peace be with you!” (Jn 20:21). This is how Jesus greeted his fear-stricken disciples in his encounter with them after his resurrection. Reflecting on this fraternal greeting of our Lord, we find that it is not a negotiated peace that he extended to his beloved disciples nor is the absence of conflict as the world normally understands. It is the peace that comes from the heart of the Risen Lord, the peace that has defeated sin, fear and death. It also is the peace that bestows courage, resilience and hope. It is a peace that does not divide but unites; it is a peace that does not abandon the disciples but makes them feel loved. This greeting of Risen Jesus also calls the disciples to be bearers of peace as he himself says: “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” By this, Jesus entrusts the mission to them to go into the world to continue his ministry of the Reign of God. As that of the disciples then, now we have the personal call of Jesus to commit ourselves in our time and context of fear and anxiety, polarization of people and politicization of religion, rise of fundamentalism and decline of democracy in our country. As we all know the country has been facing an unprecedented challenge of the erosion of constitutional values and morality steadily since the time of the present regime. There are clarion symptoms of the backslide of democracy of India such as “systematic hollowing out of independent institutions, undemocratic changes and additions to laws, trampling down of rights of minorities, selective adjudication of cases by constitutional courts, and targeted and selective harassment of journalists” (Mar. 27, 2024 by The Leaflet). In short, there is fear in people’s mind that “India is among ‘worst autocratisers’ in recent years and has remained an ‘electoral autocracy’ at the end of 2023 after first being categorized as one in 2018” as reported by V-Dem (Mar. 08, 2024). At this juncture, as the disciples of the Risen Lord, we, the protagonists of the Reign of God, have a singular role to play at this crucial general election which, perhaps as some political analysts claim, may decide the secular democracy of India’s future. Hence, the present critical political scenario of the country calls us for the need for a stance of conviction and collaborative proaction in favour of the constitutional values in order to save the secular democratic nature of India. In this regard, the Tamil Nadu Bishops’ Council, after much reflection and discernment, has come out with the statement of our stance in view of the general election. Culling out the cue from the statement of the TNBC, the Laity Council along with the pastoral commissions and other participatory structures of our diocese is spearheading the task of giving political awareness to people. May I kindly request you to disseminate the statement of the TNBC and to join hands with our diocesan team and people of goodwill to save the country and save democracy! As a piece of information, God has blessed our diocese with another six deacons this year to be ordained at 5.30 pm on April 7, Sunday at St. Xavier’s Cathedral, Kottar. I gladly invite all of you to participate in the holy mass of ordination and to celebrate the joy of priesthood. May this blessed event be an opportune time to pray for all our priests who work tirelessly in our diocese!