ASIA/INDIA - Lay Catholics play important part in Church life in India agents di evangelisation, courageous witnesses of Christ even in hostile environments

Monday, 6 June 2005

New Delhi (Fides Service) - Lay Catholics play a major role in evangelisation in India, their specific role and charisma are fundamental in today’s context where Christians often face hostility and attacks by extremist Hindu nationalists against religious minorities.
To encourage the laity in this courageous witness in the 1990s Noemi Mascarenhas wrote a small booklet Daily Flash offering a passage of Scripture for each day and a short reflection on the presence of lay Catholics in society, implications and significance of testimony in the social, economic, cultural, political field and human. The booklet was soon a best-seller all over the country spreading in dioceses, parishes, lay movements and schools.
Today the booklet which uses simple wording and is suitable for everyone has been reissued and is proving to be precious aid for the formation of the laity since it meditates and spreads many notions of the Catholic Church’s social teaching.
The author Noemi told Fides “As secretary of the Regional Commission for Christian Life in Goa I had the idea of offering the laity some daily thoughts based on the Word of God and the Archbishop of Goa encouraged and supported me”. At first only a limited number of copies were printed and Noemi paid for the publication herself . “But the book soon became popular and was ‘adopted’ by the Laity Commission of Goa archdiocese and is now diffused all over the Union.”
(PA) (Agenzia Fides 6/6/2005 righe 25 parole 258)


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