Bishops bring hope to Kandhamal, a Land of martyrs and faith
Staff Writer - February 2025
An Indian archbishop who led a group of bishops on a Feb. 5 visit to eastern Odisha’s Kandhamal district - the epicenter of anti-Christian violence nearly 20 years ago - has said the land will become a pilgrimage center for Catholics.
“I am sure, one day, this land of martyrs in Kandhamal will become a pilgrimage site for Catholics,” Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore and newly elected vice president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI) told UCA News on Feb. 6.
He said the 23 bishops accompanying him interacted with many survivors of the 2008 violence that tore through churches and Christian villages in the district.
“The survivors are safe now after being rehabilitated by a Catholic Church initiative with the support of the government, but their lives are not without fear,” Machado noted.
More than 100 people were killed and hundreds wounded during the attacks that began on Aug. 24, 2008, and lasted more than four months, rendering more than 56,000 people homeless.
The violence followed the Aug. 23 murder of Swami Lakshmananda Saraswati, a Hindu nationalist leader in Odisha. Local left-wing Maoist rebels claimed responsibility, but local Hindu groups blamed the murder on Christians instead.
The four months of violence left a trail of destruction as over 300 churches and 6,000 homes were razed. Many Christians were forced to flee into nearby forests, where some succumbed to hunger and even snakebites.
“Although there is no visible violence [now] against Christians in this region, people can sense hatred and suspicion from dominant Hindu groups,” Father Manoj Kumar Nayak, a survivor of the violence from Tiangia village, told UCA News on Feb. 7.
Now the parish priest of Our Lady of Miraculous Medal Church in Mondasoru village, which has 300 Catholic families, Nayak said the victim families have been rehabilitated in small houses.
But “one cannot miss the lingering fear of the Hindu nationalists,” he added.
Nayak said Catholics were reassured by the visit of the Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli on Jan. 31 to Kandhamal district to show solidarity with them.
He said the 23 bishops, led by Archbishop Machado, visited Our Lady of Charity Church in Raikia and Nandagiri, where 82 families have rebuilt their lives after being forcibly removed from their original village of Beticola.
The prelates then visited the Dibyajyoti Pastoral Center in Kanjamendi, which was restored after being reduced to ashes during the violence.
“The visit was significant in building the courage, strength, and faith of the people,” Nayak said.
Some 10,000 people in Kandhamal are yet to return to their homes. Many fled to Bhubaneshwar in 2008.
“They have been uprooted and visit their relatives only during marriages, feast days and some such social or religious occasions,” the priest said.
Nayak said Catholics from the Divine Mercy Chapel in Tiangia village had submitted a petition to the nuncio requesting that Father Bernard Digal, a priest of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar diocese, be declared a Servant of God.
Digal was a senior Catholic priest who was killed in the 2008 Kandhamal violence, he said.
The Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of Saints granted the nihil ob statto on Oct. 18, 2023, to initiate the process of the canonization of 35 murdered Catholics, known as “martyrs of Kandhamal.”
“We have overcome the worst violence in our lives through our faith,” said Benedict Digal, elder brother of Bernard Digal.
“Our deep faith and the bishops’ solidarity with us fill us with hope. We will follow Christ despite the daily threats and intimidation,” he added.
(Courtsey: ucanews)
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