Archbishop Anil Couto of Delhi rededicated a church on Jan. 15 that
was burned down two years ago, and expressed sadness over the sloppy
investigation into the incident.
St. Sebastian Church in the
Dilshad Garden area of New Delhi was gutted on Dec. 1, 2014 and
Catholics "did our best to protest, showed our displeasure on the
streets and met with several government officials," the archbishop
recalled, while blessing the rebuilt church.
"In the end, it was a
very sad result," he said, adding that the investigation after two
months concluded that the early morning fire was due to an electric
short circuit.
The whole episode gave us "a lesson that we as Christians have to always be ready to face persecution in the name of Jesus."
The
fire was followed by a series of crimes against Catholics and city
churches. A stone was thrown at a church on Dec. 8 and a fire destroyed a
Nativity scene in another on Jan. 5, 2015.
A Marian grotto was vandalized ten days later and another church was desecrated in New Delhi in February that year.
A. Chinnapan, secretary general of the All India Catholic Union,
suspected that Hindu extremists were behind the attack. "The
investigation was not fair and it was not done wholeheartedly," he said.
Although both the federal and the state governments promised financial help to rebuild the church, nothing was done, he said.
The
attacks happened months after the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP)
won a landslide in the national elections and its leader Narendra Modi
became prime minister.
"The Delhi police's approach was very weak
from the beginning and they did not seem to show any commitment," said
A.C. Michael, a former member of the Delhi Minorities Commission, and a
Catholic leader.
Christian leaders like him believe the attack
was part of a wave of anti-Christian violence the nation witnessed,
allegedly orchestrated by Hindu groups who considered the BJP's victory
as a mandate for them to accelerate their nationalist agenda.
Delhi
Archdiocese has has some 100,000 Catholics from a population of some 30
million people. Catholics are spread across 61 parishes in the city and
its suburbs. They belong to the Latin, Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara
rites.
The Latin rite follows the Roman liturgy and the other two
Eastern rites follow Syrian church traditions. Together, the three rites
comprise the Catholic Church in India.