India’s Work on the Family Synod (continued)

Alan reports that the presentation went well: “I was a bit weak in the knees at the start of the presentation so I began by saying, ‘I am not here because of my knowledge of theology, scripture or dogma. I am here [as] the delivery man of the team. That is where I was able to contribute and what I hope to do is to motivate you into action.’”

I said, “I showed them some videos—one was Sr. Christina, the singing nun in the Italy-Voice program—and said that we are looking for such energy in the religious and clergy to deliver on the ground, and this is the job of the bishops and provincials. I also threw in some critical remarks, like 30% parish priests are not aligned to their bishops and the same goes for non-performing persons in religious orders—all these guys were nodding in acceptance. So I sent a message to start evangelizing inside the church. Let’s see what happens.”

You can find the report Alan delivered, and get a glimpse of how the Church in India works, on our web site.

A few comparisons
The CCBI (India’s bishops conference) has 131 Latin dioceses among the total 168 dioceses and eparchies. For comparison, dioceses and eparchies in the U.S. number 195 and 178 of those are Latin.

The U.S. also has more Catholics—an estimated 69.4 million, which is 22% of its 326 million total population—than India, which numbers 19.9 million Catholics (only 1.5%) among its 1.29 billion residents.