Aid to the Church in Need: North India: Christmas is cancelled

North India: Christmas is cancelled

Posted by Press Release on 9/12/2008, 8:18 am
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ACN News, Monday, 8th December 2008 – INDIA

Christmas is cancelled

North India bishop scales back festivities as tensions grow

By John Pontifex in India

A BISHOP in north India has cancelled Christmas festivities attracting tens of thousands of people amid increased security concerns in the run-up to the country’s general elections.
More than 50,000 people in Lucknow city were expected at the annual Christmas ‘Dance Drama’ on the steps of the Catholic cathedral but on Saturday (6th December), Bishop Gerald Mathias intervened, citing continuing tensions before the poll due within a few months.
The bishop went further to put a line through other activities including an annual invitation to the Chief Minister Mayawathi of Uttar Pradesh state, the Governor of Lucknow, the chief justice and other dignitaries to attend an event including carols, brief speeches and a meal.
Other events Bishop Mathias cancelled include a Christmas Day gathering for 15 or more priests from Lucknow and celebrations held five days later involving clergy and religious from across the diocese.

(Bishop Gerald Mathias of Lucknow)

Announcing the cancellations to ACN staff visiting Lucknow on a project assessment visit to northern India, Fr Ignatius D’Souza, the vicar general, said people across the city would be disappointed but that the decision was unavoidable.
He said: “We are concerned about fundamentalist activity. The extremists’ strategy is very long term and they might see our diocesan Christmas activities as an opportunity to take action.
“Although we have very good security arrangements for the events and have an excellent relationship with the local police department here, we can’t be too careful. You don’t know the mind of those wanting to stir up trouble.”
He explained that the run-up to major elections was always a time of increased security concerns with the risk of aggressive acts by extremist political parties determined to influence voting by fair means or foul.
Fr D’Souza added: “Every time there are general elections, there are people wanting to inflame tensions.”
Across India, the Church is on alert following recurring attacks in which up to 500 died in Orissa state, but also in Karnataka state in the south-west, where the destruction of churches was entirely unexpected in a very Catholic area.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India has recently sent out a message urging dioceses to scale down Christmas festivities while leaving each bishop to make the final decision.
Fr D’Souza stressed that the cancellations were made in an act of solidarity with Christians in Orissa who would be marking the first anniversary of atrocities in Kandhamal where churches were ransacked and whole village communities were forced from their homes.
Bishop Mathias was encouraged to scale back the festivities by local Muslim leaders who at Saturday’s meeting announcing they were reducing Eid celebrations.
For the performers of the Christmas Dance Drama, who include seminarians and novice Sisters and Brothers, the decision to scrap the festivities will be keenly felt as rehearsals were already underway.
Drawing heavily on local culture, the annual dance drama enacts selected Scriptural texts from across the Bible, concentrating on the Nativity.

(Catholics leaving Lucknow Cathedral after Sunday morning Mass)

Due to have taken place on Christmas Day, the two open-air performances attract a mostly non-Christian audience to St Joseph’s Cathedral in the heart of Lucknow, which is majority Hindu but with a 20 percent Muslim population.
The Church lays on the drama as a key means of outreach in a city of three million where Catholics are barely 4,000 in number.
But Fr D’Souza said an exhibition celebrating the Christmas story would go ahead in the cathedral compound as usual and that people were welcome to enter and light a candle according to local custom.

Editor’s Notes:

Directly under the Holy See, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity – helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action.

Founded in 1947 by Fr Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An Outstanding Apostle of Charity”, the organisation is now at work in about 145 countries throughout the world.

The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, 45 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide.

For more information please contact the Australian office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148. Web: [url=http://www.aidtochurch.org ]www.aidtochurch.org

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