By Vatican News staff writer

Tropical storm Eta hit the Florida Keys late on Sunday night, after wreaking devastation through parts of Central America over the weekend.

After having travelled and destroyed parts of Mexico, Cuba and Guatemala, authorities in Florida are asking that people “please take this very seriously”, and urging them to follow rules and protocol.

The National Hurricane Centre has warned that Storm Eta is likely to bring with it “strong winds, heavy rains and dangerous storm surge” over parts of South Florida and the Florida Keys.

In preparation, the closure of schools, public transport, and beaches has been ordered, and shelters have been opened for people living in mobile homes, parks and campgrounds in low-lying areas as they will be evacuated.

Pope Francis on Sunday prayed for all the victims of the storm in Central America. Eta, he said, has caused “many victims and considerable damage”, aggravating “the already difficult situation of the pandemic”.

After the recitation of the Angelus, the Pope prayed that the Lord might  “welcome the dead, comfort their families and support those who are most affected, as well as all those who are working hard to help them”.

At least 20 people were killed in Mexico, around 17 in Panama and 10 in Honduras, where hundreds of people are reportedly waiting to be rescued from flooded areas.

In Guatemala, homes were buried by mudslides, leaving some 150 people either dead or missing. Luckily, ahead of the storm’s arrival, Cuba had already evacuated tens of thousands of people. State media reported that there had been “no loss of life or significant damage to homes”.

By Vatican News staff writer

Christians in India observed Dalit Liberation Sunday in solidarity and closeness with Christians of Dalit origin or former untouchables, who continue to face discrimination and injustice. Since 2007, the Office for Scheduled Castes-Backward Classes of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) and the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI), which comprises Protestant and Orthodox Churches, come together to mark the day on the second Sunday of November.

The “broken” people

The word “Dalit”, derived from Sanskrit, meaning “broken” or “downtrodden”, and refers to former “untouchables,” who are so low in ‎social status ‎that they are considered outcasts or outside the rigid 4-tier caste system of Hindu society. As a result, through centuries, Dalits have been subjected to extreme exploitation, inhuman treatment, atrocities and poverty. 

Government data shows 201 million of India’s 1.2 billion people belong to this socially deprived community. Some 60 percent of India’s 25 million Christians are of Dalit or indigenous origin.  Most of the Dalit Christians are in the southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Focus on Dalit Women

The theme of the November 8 observance was “Challenging Caste: Affirming the Dignity of Dalit Women.”

“This land, where female deities are worshipped as power, knowledge and wealth, has become the most unsafe place for women. Facts show that Dalit women suffer the horrors more than Dalit men,” Bishop Sarat Chandra Nayak of Berhampur, chairman of the CBCI Office for SC/BC, said in his message.

He said that in recent months, many Dalit women have been targeted, attacked and brutally killed. “We bewail the fact that justice often eludes the Dalit survivors, while the perpetrators, backed by their political patrons, manipulate the law and move around scot-free.”

Change of mentality and heart

Violence against Dalits, Bishop Nayak pointed out, is often based on caste prejudice. The perpetrators consider Dalit women as mere objects to be used and thrown away.   Unless there is a change in mentality in the heart, discrimination and crimes against the marginalized will continue.  A change is possible only when “every family consciously and practically promotes at home the equal dignity and right of every child,” said the 63-year old bishop from the eastern state of Odisha.   

He lamented that in India, intellectuals, human rights activists, civil society members and the unprejudiced media are “strategically silenced, while others become the mouthpiece of the power of the day and slaves of the privileged class”.

Dalit Liberation Sunday is an occasion for the whole Christian community to renew its responsibility toward sisters and brothers of Dalit origin, especially Christians.

1950 Presidential Order

To ‎help the socio-economic uplift of Dalits, the ‎Indian ‎Constitution reserves for them special privileges and benefits such as quota in government jobs and educational institutions. However, the Constitution (Scheduled Caste) Order (Paragraph 3) that India’s first President Rajendra Prasad signed on August 10, 1950, initially stated that “…no person who professes a religion different from the Hindu religion shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste.”

When Sikhs demanded these privileges, the Order was modified in 1956 to include them. Buddhists, too, were granted the benefits in 1990. But Muslims and Christians of low caste origin continue to be excluded despite their demands.

Dalit Christians and Muslims continue to demand the status of scheduled castes and observe the “Black Day” protest on August 10 each year against the Presidential Order of August 10, 1950.  Christians separately observe Dalit Liberation Sunday Day on the second Sunday of November, demanding justice and the rights and dignity of Dalit Christians.

Thrice discriminated

According to the CBCI Office for SC/BC, Dalit Christians are thrice discriminated, namely within the Church, within society and by the State. It notes that Dalits embraced Christianity seeking a better life with dignity, but unchristian and discriminatory practices continue within the Church. 

The NCCI has for decades announced zero tolerance for caste discrimination in any form. “No one can serve Christ and caste — the practice of caste is a sin and untouchability a crime,” said a November 8 statement by the NCCI.  “Practice of caste in its many manifestations despite it being rendered illegal is a blot on Indian social life and polity.”  It denounced the practice, either tacitly or openly, in social institutions, including in Churches and in politics.  (Source: UCANEWS)

By Alessandro Gisotti

“A house divided against itself cannot stand”. On June 16, 1858, Abraham Lincoln, a Senatorial candidate at the time, pronounced this sentence, inspired by the Gospel of Mark (3:25), in a speech aimed at emphasizing how the young American democracy could not endure with half of the States allowing slavery. That speech of the future president of the United States, cited countless times in the last century and a half, remains an ever-present injunction to the American people, inscribed even on its seal with the words chosen by the Founding Fathers recalling the principle of unity: E pluribus unum.

It is precisely unity, which “is greater than conflict” as Evangelii Gaudium puts it, that is strongly evoked at this moment after the most divisive and polarizing American presidential elections in the country’s recent history. “Now is the time for our leaders to come together in a spirit of national unity”, said the president of the U.S. bishops, the Archbishop of Los Angeles José H. Gomez, in a message of congratulations to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-president-elect Kamala Harris. Moreover, the American media, almost unanimously, put the theme of national reconciliation as the most urgent challenge (together with Covid-19 and the consequent economic crisis) that, as of next January 20, the next resident of the White House will face.

Significantly, last June 30, Pope Francis focused on the issue of unity in a message to the Catholic Press Association, to which Catholic communications organizations in North America belong. “E pluribus unum, the ideal of unity amid diversity, reflected in the motto of the United States”, observed the Pontiff, “must also inspire the service you offer to the common good. How urgently is this needed today, in an age marked by conflicts and polarization from which the Catholic community itself is not immune. We need media capable of building bridges, defending life and breaking down the walls, visible and invisible, that prevent sincere dialogue and truthful communication between individuals and communities”. Words addressed to the media, but also applicable to other areas of American society.

Certainly, unity for the Pope does not mean uniformity. Even in this particular context, we are aided by the image of the polyhedron which, in Francis’ vision, “reflects the convergence of all its parts, each of which preserves its distinctiveness”. This model is all the more valid for a nation that from its birth presents itself as plural: multi-ethnic, multicultural and multi-religious. This search for unity – corroborated by social friendship to echo Fratelli tutti – is not, however, an end in itself, but tends toward the promotion of the good of the person and the community. The two were at the heart of Francis’ speech before the United States Congress (a first for a Pope on Capitol Hill), which took place on September 24, 2015.

“If politics must truly be at the service of the human person,” was his exhortation on that occasion, “it follows that it cannot be a slave to the economy and finance. Politics is, instead, an expression of our compelling need to live as one, in order to build as one the greatest common good: that of a community which sacrifices particular interests in order to share, in justice and peace, its goods, its interests, its social life”. Addressing himself directly to the members of U.S. congress, the Pope said: “I do not underestimate the difficulty that this involves, but I encourage you in this effort”. An exhortation that today, in such a delicate moment in the history of the United States, echoes even more strongly.