Will India legislate for properties of Roman Catholic Church now?

If winter comes, can spring be far behind? This famous line of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “Ode to the West Wind” has impressed generations for centuries and will surely continue to do the same but the same (citation) can be used in other spheres of life also. Well, there is no doubt that the current Indian government is chanting the quotation. Reason? The Indian governments, irrespective of ideological differences, have been going on successfully to placate the fundamentalist section of Muslim society and endorsing their each demand almost, how illogical they are.

Now it’s the time for other Indian minority communities to move on and hence a section of the Catholic laity, including intellectuals from across the country, has come forward. Their demand is simple and it is a government-enacted legislation to govern properties owned and managed by the Roman Catholic Church in India. The demand mainly stems from the fear among the Christians of the lack of transparency in the management of assets owned by the Church.

The issue came to the fore when former Supreme Court Justice K.T. Thomas, while speaking at the recently held seminar on ‘Should there be a law to protect the properties of the Church’, organized on July 29 by the All India Catholic Union (AICU), said the Catholic Church’s hesitation to accept enactment of a law for administering their properties was because of the fear that a provision for judicial scrutiny would likely expose its expenses and the magnitude of wealth it possesses.

“I would say that those who resist any such law could have the sinister motive of misusing the funds and wealth of the religious denominations,” he said, urging the different denominations of the Church to demand such a law.

Former Union minister of State for External Affairs and commissioner of the Goa Non-Resident Indians (NRI) cell, Eduardo Faleiro was also present on the occasion. Faleiro stated emphatically the Goa Legislative Assembly was empowered to endorse the coveted legislation, which would enable greater transparency in the administrative and monetary matters of the Church.

“The legislative Assembly is competent to enact a new law as it is within the legislative power granted to it by the concurrent list in the Seventh Schedule of the Indian Constitution,” Faleiro added. He also made it clear that the new law could be worked out in consultation with the Catholic Church in Goa.

What will Indian government do now? Will it endorse the same? If it goes on in this way, concept of national integration and cohesion will be shelved. It’s a reality.