TCN News
As lockdown 5.0 eases restrictions on religious places, All India Catholic Union (AICU) has thanked the government for the decision. This was communicated by AICU in a webinar on Wednesday.
Inaugurated by Cardinal Oswald Gracias, the webinar was attended by Pete Machado (Bangalore Archbishop), Allan Brooks (spokesman of the church in North East India), Elias Vaz (AICU vice president), Lancy D Cunha (AICU national president) and Vibhuti Patel (Mumbai social worker), apart from other members of the union. Moderator AC Michael noted that religious practices differ widely between faiths, and sometimes even within different sects and rites of religions. Also, minority religions differ in various districts and blocks of the country, many of which have not been as severely impacted as metropolitan cities. In such a scenario, “regulations imposed may be entirely unnecessary in most rural areas and small town, and possibly also impractical.”
President Cunha discussed these impacts of imposed isolation on worshippers as having created “psychological, psychosomatic and spiritual challenges for the people,” reminding that it is imperative on the spiritual leaders “to address this on an urgent basis.” On that note, she highlighted that worship “cannot be done on television or using information technology,” and on behalf of AICU, she extended her thanks for government to allow the reopening of shrines and religious places.
Cunha continued that churches in the country “had implicitly followed the government guidelines in the lockdown” other than “contributing greatly in extending medicare, relief and other assistance to people impacted by unemployment, hunger and homelessness.” AICU vice president Vaz added that many churches have also been converted to COVID care wards, refugee centres and food distribution points and that bishops, clergy, nuns and volunteers were closely involved in relief and distress amelioration operations at all levels, down to small towns and villages.
AICU also outlined its role in addressing “the biggest humanitarian crisis of these times apart from the spreads of the disease – the migrant crisis” in that the churches were “at the forefront of all aspects of the amelioration of the hardships of the migrant workers and their families.” Food, medical attention and in many cases such as those going to Jharkhand, all forms of transport were arranged free of cost, AICU informed.
“The church is committed to taking all measures needed to prevent the spread of disease and for personal hygiene,” iterated AICU meet. It said that assessment of current management must be done and local Bishops and priests must come up with detailed systems management. Cunha added that the Catholic Bishops Conference and its counterparts “had given detailed guidelines to their clergy and Laity in this regard.”
The AICU webinar also discussed issues arising out of the long closure of schools and assured that “children who have had to relocate because of the pandemic and the migrations, will be given admissions in Catholic schools to the full possible extent.”
In its endnote, AICU remarked that “the silence of the pandemic had also made Corona community alive to issues of human rights, constitutional values and civil liberties,” thus establishing that religious institutions are “an important part of the civil society, involved not just in reaching to people that are out of coverage of government programmes, but in helping build a strong spirit of citizenship.” Hence, leaders of all religious institutions “must be consulted before Union and state governments take radical decisions and impose rules on the opening of places of worship.”
President Cunha concluded that the church would observe its responsibility for maintaining all possible safety measures and would act “as a partner in nation-building in the post-COVID era.”