Barad: Can Augusto, or anyone, highlight exactly what Kerala and Madhya Pradesh is trying to do in terms of giving the Christian laity more control on the church properties?
Response: The Kerala and MP governments have been trying to 'usurp' / 'control' the properties of the Church for different reasons. In Kerala, the Church is a very powerful institution and is dominant in the educational sector. It runs a number of schools and colleges in a state where the literacy levels are almost 100% and where there is a huge demand for good educational institutions.The Communist govt has been at loggerheads with the Church since a long time (back to the 1950's) and wants control of the educational institutions so that they can propagate their ideology and cut down the influence of the Church. In MP, the situation is quite different. Here the sangh parivar wants to exercise control and emasculate the Church in furtherance of its own ideology and is trying to use the back door method. Neither of the intentions are clean and transparent. The Church so far I know, consists of the clergy, the laity and the institution. There may be glitches in the administration of Church properties, but to claim that the laity is being empowered is nothing but a sham. Regards, Marshall
