(August 13, 2010) Catholic bishops in central India’s Madhya Pradesh state met Chief
Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan on Thursday urging for Church-state collaboration.
The meeting came after the bishops of all the nine Catholic dioceses in the state
ended a three-day regional council meeting. Archbishop Leo Cornelio of Bhopal headed
a nine-member delegation that included three religious as some bishops could not join.
He told Ucanews that the Church is willing to join hands with the state government
in setting up educational and health services, as such collaboration would help the
Church dispel the wrong notion that Christian social services were a façade for conversion
activities. The proposal for church-state collaboration was part of a memorandum
the delegation submitted to the chief minister. The memorandum mentioned continued
harassment Christians face in the state, saying the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP), which has ruled the state from 2003, has the tacit support of the police.
Since 2003, the has been witnessing scores of attacks on Christians and other minority
groups. Father Anand Muttungal, spokesperson of the Catholic Church in the state
said the chief minister was “very positive” and promised to consider the proposal
for collaboration. Chauhan also promised to protect Christians from attacks by radical
Hindus, he said. Christians are a tiny minority in the state, forming less then 1
percent of the Madhya Pradesh´s 60 million people, 91 percent of whom are Hindus