Dedications

​Dear parishioners we would like to place before you a grave concern where the attendance for children’s mass and catechism classes is going down. We would like to remind that catechism is not just about receiving first holy communion and confirmation but about deepening our faith and identity. We therefore appeal to the concerned parents to please send your children for mass and catechism

​Then came across this funny reel. Select link to open

​https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dcn6tF-gFUm/?igsi=dWdhZHhlZmNwZjdi

​The Church in Bombay needs to realise that there is an awakened laity and an even more awakened youth, both realising that the institution of the Church is a business institution. They force children to attend First Holy Communion classes. The ones who conduct these classes are the same people who cling to positions in the Church and do not allow new parishioners to take over. Then, at the Holy Communion ceremony, select kids of some prominent parishioners or their relatives will be chosen to read. Then comes the Confirmation class, which makes no sense, and so does Baptism and First Holy Communion. The first baptism was the baptism of Christ by John the Baptist. Infant baptism was a man-made introduction over 100 years later after Christ. First Holy Communion is the celebration of the Last Supper, which had adults at the table with Jesus. Irony is the Last Supper which is celebrated as Mass and Holy Communion which is distributed is only for Catholics. How weird is that? The Church wants to preach Christ to the world but not share his body and blood? When Christ shared it even with Judas?

​Man-made diktats of white supremacists from the ivory towers in the Vatican are what we in India blindly follow, not realising we have a culture which was juxtaposed with colonial culture and forced conversion. Goa still has pillars using the Portuguese-English word 'Pelourinho' (Pillory), and in local Konkani called 'Haat Katro Khamb'. A pillar where locals were tied, whipped, and had their hands crushed for not converting to Christianity, during the Portuguese evil rule.

​So, how does the Church in India expect an awakened youth, who is today informed of its history hidden by the Church, to come to church? Even youth of other religions are awakened and questioning their religious faiths. The Church in India, especially the Catholic Church, needs to reach out to its own laity, especially the youth, in whom the Church is not investing. 

Taking pride in colonial-era educational institutions or even after that, and claiming Christians were pioneers of education and healthcare in India, the question the Church needs to introspect is: how really educated are Christians in India? Like the Parsis, a smaller refugee community that came into India and has professionals at so many levels of professions and entrepreneurship, a religion that does not even allow anyone from another religion to enter its place of worship.

​The Church should be more worried about vocations into the priesthood dwindling: a vocation where the priest is considered the pastor and the laity the sheep. There is corruption in the clergy, where it is not a matter of searching for the one lost sheep of children and youth not coming to Church , but rather the shepherds who themselves are astray.