Indian Catholics Go to Great Lengths to Show Mercy to Neighbors

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That’s great and I know there are some good Catholics in India.

However, the overall picture is very bad for Dalit (untouchable) Catholics, who are about 70% of the Catholic population in India.

Many caste Catholics in India (those above the Dalits) are prejudiced and discriminate against Dalit Catholics, and some commit atrocities against them, such as raping their women with legal impugnity, beating and killing them (esp those who speak out against the injustices ) & geting their deaths counted as “suicides” by officials, and ransacking and burning their belongings and huts.

In many Catholic villages, Dalits are not allowed to bury their dead in the common church graveyard (some have been killed attempting to do so), have to sit separately during Mass (though this is changing slowly). During village festivals the statue (of Mary, Jesus, or the saint after which the village is named) will not go to the Dalit streets. They cannot use the common church hearse, are not allowed to bring their dead along the main road,cannot draw water from the main well, live in separate “colonies,” that are usually downstream and get flooded more easily and have less healthy water. Are forced to do degrading jobs. Are considered inherently polluting to caste Catholics who believe their touch will pollute and harm them in some way.

Dalit priests are less than 10% of the Catholic priests, there are separate convents for Dalit nuns. Caste Catholic religious say “Dalits don’t have callings.” Some bishops refuse ordination to some Dalit seminarians, even after they have studied in the seminary for over 10 years and done very well with good marks.

One never hears about the sin of untouchability or racism in homilies, even on Dalit Liberation Day (which was yesterday). If a Dalit priest dares to speak about equality, he is harassed or threatened. Some Dalit priests are threated with their lives, but the bishops do little for them.

The list goes on. My husband (a caste Catholic) and I (an Anglo from the US) feel that Jesus is not in the Church in India, that we need to bring Jesus into the Church. That caste Catholics in India need to vigorously and often speak out against such injustices and sins, the way the Church and Catholics in the US spoke out against racism in the 60s and 70s…so that now American Catholics for the most part know and accept that racism is wrong and a sin.
 
lynnvinc said:
That’s great and I know there are some good Catholics in India.

However, the overall picture is very bad for Dalit (untouchable) Catholics, who are about 70% of the Catholic population in India.

Many caste Catholics in India (those above the Dalits) are prejudiced and discriminate against Dalit Catholics, and some commit atrocities against them, such as raping their women with legal impugnity, beating and killing them (esp those who speak out against the injustices ) & geting their deaths counted as “suicides” by officials, and ransacking and burning their belongings and huts.

In many Catholic villages, Dalits are not allowed to bury their dead in the common church graveyard (some have been killed attempting to do so), have to sit separately during Mass (though this is changing slowly). During village festivals the statue (of Mary, Jesus, or the saint after which the village is named) will not go to the Dalit streets. They cannot use the common church hearse, are not allowed to bring their dead along the main road,cannot draw water from the main well, live in separate “colonies,” that are usually downstream and get flooded more easily and have less healthy water. Are forced to do degrading jobs. Are considered inherently polluting to caste Catholics who believe their touch will pollute and harm them in some way.

Dalit priests are less than 10% of the Catholic priests, there are separate convents for Dalit nuns. Caste Catholic religious say “Dalits don’t have callings.” Some bishops refuse ordination to some Dalit seminarians, even after they have studied in the seminary for over 10 years and done very well with good marks.

One never hears about the sin of untouchability or racism in homilies, even on Dalit Liberation Day (which was yesterday). If a Dalit priest dares to speak about equality, he is harassed or threatened. Some Dalit priests are threated with their lives, but the bishops do little for them.

The list goes on. My husband (a caste Catholic) and I (an Anglo from the US) feel that Jesus is not in the Church in India, that we need to bring Jesus into the Church. That caste Catholics in India need to vigorously and often speak out against such injustices and sins, the way the Church and Catholics in the US spoke out against racism in the 60s and 70s…so that now American Catholics for the most part know and accept that racism is wrong and a sin.
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I don’t know in which part of India this happens. AFAIK, there is no such incident reported here (Bangalore). But there are other local issues for language preference though. I was sad to hear that a Priest was beaten for celebrating mass in Tamil. Sometime people are blinded by satan and don’t get the real picture of what Christianity is!
God Bless You
 
jackydarapper said:
I don’t know in which part of India this happens. AFAIK, there is no such incident reported here (Bangalore). But there are other local issues for language preference though. I was sad to hear that a Priest was beaten for celebrating mass in Tamil. Sometime people are blinded by satan and don’t get the real picture of what Christianity is!
God Bless You
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It’s there in Bangalore and all over India. Most caste Catholics either don’t know about it or don’t want to know or admit.

There are some caste Catholics, like my husband and some priests we know, who are fighting for the Dalit cause. Not all caste Catholics are bad.
 
That’s sad to know :sad_yes: Must pray more for the entire humanity[BIBLEDRB][/BIBLEDRB]
 
lynnvinc said:
It’s there in Bangalore and all over India. Most caste Catholics either don’t know about it or don’t want to know or admit.

There are some caste Catholics, like my husband and some priests we know, who are fighting for the Dalit cause. Not all caste Catholics are bad.
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I wrote a bit hastily. It is true that untouchability and casteism can be found in the Catholic Church everywhere in India, it is mainly in the rural areas, in villages, where most Dalit reside. Dalits who move to the cities, like Bangalore or Chennai, often have some sort of more decent jobs and can easily “pass” in public, since Dalits do not look different from caste Hindus or caste Catholics. The churches in the cities also tend to be somewhat more impersonal – that is people may not know much about the other people attending. Also city-dwellers tend to be a bit more liberal re caste.

It is mainly in villages where everyone knows everyone, and often the wealth of the wealthy land-owners is dependent on the cheap labor of the Dalits, that there is a lot of problems and discrimination. However, it goes beyond mere economic considerations to a fear of being polluted by the Dalits and having the caste Catholic graveyards (usually supposed to be common Church graveyards) where their ancestors have been buried polluted if a were to be Dalit buried there.

Such an event led to the murder of the Dalit who dug a grave for his relative, once the Church told them it was okay to bury their death in the common Church graveyard. The new priest there (a year or so after that murder) is a Dalit, and has received death threats from the dominant caste Catholics, and only about 40% are attending Mass, the other refusing to do so. He feels he’s making progress, since when he was 1st installed as priest only 20% attended Mass.
 
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