Cardinal Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, head of the Vatican Dicastery for Evangelization, is attended the 34th plenary assembly of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI), the national association of the country’s Latin rite prelates.
The January 24-25 annual plenary at Bengaluru’s St. John’s National Academy of Health Sciences will address the theme, “Telling the Story of Jesus in our Context: The Synodal Way.”
On January 23, Cardinal Tagle, a Filipino prelate, visited leaders of other religions in Bengaluru city, capital of the southern Indian state of Karnataka.
Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore and vicars general Monsignors S Jayanathan and C Francis accompanied the prelates.
They met Usman Sharieff, secretary Jumma Masjid Trust Board and other leaders of the Muslim community at Khadriya Masjid, Millers Road, under the Management of Jumma Masjid Trust Board.
Their next stop was at the ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) Temple at Rajajinagar where they exchanged pleasantries and matters of mutual interest with Madhu Pandit Dasa, temple president and chairman of the Akshya Patra.
At both places the Catholic prelates prayed for interreligious harmony, solidarity and fellowship, according to a press note from J A Kanthraj, spokesperson of the Archdiocese of Bangalore.
Earlier on January 22, Cardinal Tagle was accorded a warm and affectionate welcome at the Bangalore international airport by a team led by Archbishop Machado.
Others in the team were Fathers Stephen Alathara, CCBI deputy secretary general, Vignan Das, associate director Communio, Gabriel Christy and Vivek Basu.
The CCBI accounts for 132 of India’s 174 dioceses. It has 190 bishops, both active and retired, as members. It was set up as canonical national episcopal body to help India’s Latin rite bishops to exchange ideas and information, deliberate on the Church’s broad concerns and take care of the pastoral needs of the faithful.
It is the fourth largest bishops’ conferences of the world and the largest in Asia. The conference assists the bishops both for pastoral care and for evangelization. One of the main purposes of CCBI according to its statutes is “to promote that greater good which the Church offers humankind especially through fora and programs of the apostolate which are adequately adapted to the circumstances of time and space.”
