Bishop ordered to reopen Indian church after fight with faithful

In a setback to the Archbishop of Bangalore, India's High Court has ordered the reopening of the St Paul the Hermit Church which had been shut down following the erection of a statue of a controversial priest who had died, reports daijiworld.com.

The court has also ordered that the church should be opened by September 26, and that Archbishop Bernard Moras should appoint a priest to the church by September 29.

The only consolation to the Bangalore Archdiocese was that the bust of Fr Chowrappa Selvaraj, commonly known as Fr Chasara, erected in defiance of the Archbishop, was that it be covered in a wooden case.

Fr Chasara was accused in the murder of the then Rector of St Peter’s Pontifical Seminary at Malleswaram in 2013. Six other people were named on the charge sheet.

Crux reported that in May members of the church launched a hunger strike to protest the decision by Archbishop Moras to shut the parish down, after it defied his order not to install the statue.

Of the 13 parishioners who began the hunger strike on May 29, six were hospitalised on May 31.