A friend of mine has requested prayers for a priest who is in a terrible predicament. Read the letter and please pray.
One of my mother-in-law's friends is an Indian (east Indian, not American Indian) priest, Fr. Thomas. She met him when he was in Chicago studying at Loyola, and then he was the rector of a minor seminary until last year. Over Holy Week, one of his students committed suicide. The father of the student claimed that the seminary authorities had forced him to convert, which is illegal under Indian law, and Fr. Thomas was arrested for a couple of weeks. Currently, he has been released, but he is still in need of prayers as his bishop has placed him in "exile" at an assignment in a small village with something like six Catholics because the case is still pending. Apparently the diocesan lawyer doesn't like him, so there is little-to-nothing being done about the case, even though the father has since admitted that he was bribed by the fundamentalist anti-Christian groups to lie about the fact that his son had been baptized since infancy (even though they were registered officially as Hindu, because there is more state-welfare available if you are Hindu). My mother-in-law went to visit Fr. Thomas last month, and she ... wrote about visiting him in jail. Maybe you can ask your Chapter to remember Fr. Thomas in their prayers.
And I'm asking everyone to pray for the predicament Father Thomas is in. Let us pray for trust in the Lord.
No comments:
Post a Comment