Orissa Church rejoicing over five new native priests

(April 9, 2010) The Catholic Church in eastern India’s Orissa state, where Christians had faced brutal persecutions in 2007 and 2008, is rejoicing after the ordination of five new priests in Kandhamal district on Thursday. Archbishop Raphael Cheenath of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar said the occasion is “a proud moment” for the Church in Orissa. It shows the Church in Orissa “is alive and kicking,” added the head of the Catholic Church in the state. The Divine Word prelate led the ordination ceremonies at Holy Rosary Church in Cuttack, the former state capital. Three of the newly ordained priests come from Bamunigam parish in Kandhamal, the epicenter of anti-Christian violence in December 2007 that killed five people, and destroyed 871 houses and 50 churches. Two others came from Batticola, a parish the Church abandoned after the sectarian violence in August 2008. Hindu radicals torched the parish church and tried to build a temple nearby, although the government forcibly halted construction. The radicals also drove the parish’s 35 Catholic families from their ancestral village for refusing to become Hindus. They now live in shelter homes at Nandagiri, some 25 kilometers away. The parish also accounted for nine of some 90 deaths during the seven weeks of violence in 2008. Archbishop Cheenath said the violence challenged the new priests to share Christ’s experience of passion, as all their families had suffered.