Bangalore, India, 1 December (ENI)--Christians in India's troubled Orissa state have welcomed an announcement of compensation for places of worship damaged in recent communal violence but have criticised the state government's refusal to postpone a municipal election scheduled for the beginning of December. "We are certainly happy about this [compensation]," Roman Catholic Archbishop Raphael Cheenath of Bhubaneswar, Orissa's capital, said of the announcement by the state government, which had initially opposed the Christian demand for recompense.

The Orissa government's change of mind followed a mid-November decision by India's federal supreme court, which directed the state to provide compensation, the archbishop noted. More than 200 churches and 40 religious institutions were damaged in the violence, said Cheenath. Separately, another Christian leader, Bishop Samson Das of the Church of North India, has demanded that the Orissa government postpone municipal elections scheduled for 2 December in Phulbani, the headquarters of the Kandhamal district where most of the violence took place.

Das said that many Christians had fled their homes because of the violence and "are still afraid of returning to their villages" but the Orissa government had refused to accept the postponement demand. The violence in Orissa broke out following the killing of Hindu leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati in August. A Maoist leader is reported to have claimed responsibility for the killing but some Hindu groups have said it was a Christian conspiracy, as the 85-year-old slain monk had been campaigning against conversions to Christianity in Kandhamal, where he was based.

The violence has claimed the lives of 60 Christians, and more than 5000 Christian houses have been looted or torched in the Kandhamal district. On compensation, the Orissa government said on 17 November that large places of worship and religious institutions that had been completely destroyed would receive compensation of 200 000 rupees (US$4000), while partially damaged buildings would receive half that amount.

Smaller places of worship that had been destroyed would receive 50 000 rupees while those that had been partially damaged would receive between 10 000 and 20 000 rupees. Bishop Das told Ecumenical News International that there was a "catch" in the compensation as it would apply only to buildings situated on land owned by the religious group in question. Several village churches are built on land that is not registered to a religious organization. [399 words]

[COURTESY TO ENI AS SOURCE]

Bangalore, India, 20 November (ENI)--Christians in Kerala in south India say they are stunned by the arrest of two senior Catholic priests and a nun in connection with the killing of a young nun who was found dead in a convent well in 1992. The Rev. Thomas Kottur, the 61-year old chancellor of Kottayam diocese and the Rev. Jose Puthrukkayil, the 56-year old principal of a Catholic college in the diocese, and Sister Stephi, aged 45, appeared in court in Kochi on 19 November. The court remanded them in custody until 2 December, pending further police investigation

While announcing the arrests to the media, officials from Central Bureau of Investigation, India's federal crime investigation agency, said they needed more time to discover a motive for the killing of the young nun. In 1992, Sister Abhaya of the St Pius Convent, Kottayam, was found dead in a well and the circumstances never became clear, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. Initially local police and the Kerala state crime branch, which investigated the case, concluded that the nun had committed suicide. The CBI took over the case in 2003, PTI reported.

A crowd that thronged the Kochi court hailed the arrests. The diocese of Kottayam, to which the three arrested Catholics belonged, said however in a statement, "In 16 years of investigation, various [police inquiry] teams looked into the case and could not find anything."

The Rev. Paul Thelakkat, a spokesperson for the Syro Malabar rite church to which the Kottayam diocese belongs, told Ecumenical News International the arrests were "most embarrassing" for the church. However, he said, "We want to make it clear that we believe in the courts and the judicial process which we will use to prove whether the accused are innocent or not." [315 words]

[COURTESY TO ENI AS SOURCE]

Oxford, Ohio, 12 November (ENI)--As Barack Obama is poised to begin a new era in the history of the U.S. presidency, the role of the Rev. Billy Graham as a private spiritual advisor to successive leaders of the world's most powerful country is drawing to a close. "My father feels like his time and day for that is over," Graham's son, Franklin Graham said, describing his father's health as too weak for him to serve as a counsellor to Obama the way he had for nine other presidents from both the Democratic and the Republican parties.

"But he would certainly like to meet [Obama] and pray with him," The Associated Press quoted Franklin Graham as saying. Known worldwide for his missionary revivals focused on repentance and salvation, his quiet personal life and his strict financial accounting rules for his organization, Billy Graham turned 90 on 7 November. It was an event celebrated by the release of a new movie about his life and with thousands of tributes from around the world. Though he never ministered to his own church, Graham has preached to more than 215 million people in 185 countries.

Graham has influenced a wide spectrum of U.S. culture for more than 60 years. He has appeared on the cover of Time and other U.S. national magazines multiple times, starting in 1954, and earned a spot in the Time 100 most influential people list. Born in 1918, four days before the end of the First World War, on a farm in Charlotte, North Carolina, Graham grew up while the Great Depression. He said that at 16, he committed his life to serving Christ.

Graham's youth is the subject of a new film released worldwide.

"Billy: The Early Years," tells the story of Graham's rise to prominence, culminating in his 1949 crusade in Los Angeles that lasted eight weeks and made him a national figure. The film includes considerable focus on Graham's courtship with his wife, Ruth Bell Graham, who died in 2007. [348 words]

[COURTESY TO ENI AS SOURCE]

Bangalore, India, 4 November (ENI)--Thousands of Roman Catholics thronged to the funeral of priest Bernard Digal, treasurer of the archdiocese of Bhubaneswar, following his death two months after an attack during communal violence in the troubled Kandhamal region of India's eastern Orissa state. Forty-seven year old Digal was buried in Orissa's capital, Bhubaneswar, on 31 October, three days after his death in a Chennai hospital, where he had been sent to after first getting treatment in another hospital in Mumbai to which he was airlifted at the end of August, with serious injuries.

Attackers had left Digal to die in a Kandhamal jungle on the night of 26 August. He had been searching for a motorbike to rescue an elderly priest who was stranded in Kandhamal after Digal's own van had been set on fire by Hindu extremists. The violence in Orissa broke out following the killing of Hindu leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati in August. A Maoist leader is reported to have claimed responsibility for the killing, but some Hindu groups had said it was a Christian conspiracy, as the 85-year-old slain monk had been campaigning against conversions to Christianity in Kandhamal, where he was based.

Condolences poured in for the priest whom many Christian activists have described as a martyr for his faith. "We salute you for your courage and dedication. I say this with tears in my eyes but also a level of anger and determination," said M. F. Saldanha, a retired judge of the high court of southern Karnataka state, in a message to the "Indianchristian" email group, after hearing about the death of the priest. "We will atone for this by working with a level of unparalleled courage intelligence and determination that will contain, neutralise and eliminate the forces of hate that took you away from us," stated Saldanha, who has been dealing with a more recent series of attacks against Christians in Karnataka.

The Rev. Mrutyunjay Digal, secretary to Archbishop Raphael Cheenath of Bhubaneswar, told Ecumenical News International the church is "disappointed" that the dead priest had to be buried in Bhubaneswar instead of at his native village near Raikia in Kandhamal. Mrutyunjay Digal said the police had been unable to guarantee security for a 300 kilometre (180 mile) motorcade with the priest's body from Bhubaneswar to Raikia.

The Orissa government has ordered a special inquiry into the priest's death and, two months after he was assaulted, decided to register a case against the attack on him. [426 words]

[COURTESY TO ENI AS SOURCE]