INDIA
Indian Catholic
KOCHI, India (UCAN) -- India's major Religious superiors ended their triennial meeting Feb. 1 with a call for the Church to abandon its "patriarchal mindset" for a gender-sensitive culture of collaboration.
Some 575 superiors representing 125,000 Catholic men and women Religious in the country unanimously endorsed the "vision for gender justice and collaborative action" in the Church that the meeting produced.
"Gender-sensitive Church" was the theme of the five-day national assembly of the Conference of Religious India (CRI), held in Kochi, 2,595 kilometers south of New Delhi. ...
Brother Mekkunnel spoke at the meeting on the need to chart a policy on sexual abuse of Religious within the Church and to set up appeal centers in every diocese for those who have been abused. He called for the CRI national executive committee to come up with broad outlines for this policy.
Calcutta Jesuit provincial Father George Pattery wants the policy to take a sympathetic approach to victims. He says the Church now has no policy on the abuse of Religious within the Church.
"The tendency is to silence the victims whenever complaints of sexual abuse are made. From now on, we (will) work to formulate a policy that will ensure justice for all within the Church," he told UCA News.