Indian lay group deplores ‘mob’ threats against Salesian Sisters
The All India Catholic Union condemned a mob threat against Salesian Sisters in Barasat, West Bengal. A group of 60 people demanded the demolition of a memorial chapel and cemetery, threatening violence if not complied with. The incident is alleged to involve members of the Hindu Jagran Manch, a Hindu nationalist group linked to the RSS. The event follows the BJP’s recent political gains in West Bengal and the introduction of an anti‑conversion law by the new state government.
3 months ago
India’s All India Catholic Union (AICU) and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India condemned an alleged July 12 intimidation incident involving Salesian Sisters in Barasat, West Bengal. The AICU said a group threatened the sisters over a chapel and cemetery and called for government protection and legal action. 1
According to the AICU, about 60 people entered a house of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, also known as the Salesian Sisters, and demanded that they demolish a memorial chapel and cemetery or face violence. The union said the sisters were subjected to abusive language and intimidation, and reported that members of the group declared, “Your government is no more, now it is our government.” 1
The AICU alleged that those involved were linked to the Hindu Jagran Manch, a Hindu nationalist group affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The article said the Hindu Jagran Manch had not commented on the allegation. 1
The sisters reportedly had permission to build the chapel and cemetery under West Bengal’s previous state administration. The AICU described the incident as part of a wider pattern of harassment against Christian communities and institutions in several districts, though it did not explicitly connect that pattern to the change in government. 1
The incident followed West Bengal’s April election, which ended the Trinamool Congress’s 15-year period in power and brought the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party to office. The state’s new chief minister, Suvendu Adhikari, has pledged to introduce an anti-conversion law. 1
Christians made up about 0.72% of West Bengal’s population in the 2011 census, the most recent census cited in the article. The AICU said the incident challenged constitutional protections for religious practice and the management of religious property. 1
The AICU urged the state government to secure the sisters and their institutions, protect the chapel and cemetery, prosecute those involved in the intimidation, and direct local authorities to prevent similar incidents. It warned that official inaction could encourage further attacks on minority communities. 1
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India also criticized the incident. Its spokesman, Fr. Stephen Alathara, called on people to reject violence and resolve disputes through legal channels and democratic processes. 1
The article also reported that the bishops’ conference president, Cardinal Anthony Poola, had recently led a delegation to meet federal Home Minister Amit Shah, raising concerns about anti-Christian incidents. Shah was reported to have promised intervention where local police failed to register cases. 1*
Religious freedom grounds minority protection in pluralist societies
Religious freedom is a foundation for protecting minorities because it treats the ability to follow and express one’s religion not as a favour granted by the majority, but as a right belonging to every person. In Catholic teaching, that right protects conscience and public religious life alike: people must not be coerced into or out of a faith, nor shut out of civic life because their beliefs differ from those of the majority. In a pluralist society, this makes religious freedom a basis for peaceful coexistence—not a claim that all religions are identical or that religious activity is beyond reasonable limits.
The Catholic case begins with human dignity and freedom. Religious belief concerns a person’s search for truth and meaning, and faith cannot be genuine if imposed by force. Benedict XVI therefore describes religious freedom as rooted in human nature and says it should be protected by civil law. The right belongs to people whether or not they share the majority’s religion; it also supports their participation in the nation’s civil and political life.
This means minority protection is not merely an act of tolerance by a powerful group. Tolerance can sound as though the majority may permit or withdraw another group’s presence at will. A rights-based approach instead requires public authorities and fellow citizens to respect the minority’s freedom to believe, worship, and live peacefully as part of society. John Paul II describes this freedom as immunity from coercion by individuals, social groups, or political power, in both private and public life, subject to due limits.
Religious freedom protects more than an inward conviction or permission to worship behind closed doors. It includes the ability to manifest beliefs publicly and, with others, to practise one’s religion. Pope Francis warns that pluralism is not genuinely healthy if it allows religious communities to exist only in private:
A healthy pluralism, one which genuinely respects differences and values them as such, does not entail privatizing religions in an attempt to reduce them to the quiet obscurity of the individual’s conscience or to relegate them to the enclosed precincts of churches, synagogues or mosques.
The point is not that every religious claim must prevail in public debate or that religious institutions are exempt from ordinary laws. Rather, a society should not silence people simply because their convictions are religious. Excluding minority faiths from public expression while claiming to respect their private beliefs risks making their rights nominal rather than real. Francis also cautions that respect for non-believers must not be used arbitrarily to silence religious believers; a pluralist society should make space for both.
Protecting religious minorities benefits more than the minority itself. A message on religious freedom identifies persecution, discrimination, intimidation, and violence as continuing threats to people who profess or change their religion. It argues that religious minorities are not a threat to the majority’s identity, but can contribute to dialogue and mutual cultural enrichment. On this account, defending their rights helps build reciprocal protection of fundamental freedoms more broadly.
The International Theological Commission likewise connects religious freedom with social peace and “peaceful reciprocity”: if members of a religion are entitled to express and practise their faith as a minority in one country, members of other religions should enjoy corresponding freedom where that religion is the majority. It also includes freedom of conversion in this account. Minority protection, then, is not a special exemption from a general rule. It tests whether the rule of religious freedom is genuinely universal.
Catholic teaching does not equate religious freedom with an unlimited right to do anything in the name of religion. The International Theological Commission says political authority has a duty to protect public order and citizens, especially the weakest, from forms of religious conduct involving manipulation, exploitation, or isolationism. It also emphasizes that religious freedom must be exercised with regard for others’ rights and the common good.
That qualification does not justify treating minority status itself as a danger. The relevant concern is harmful conduct, not mere religious difference. A restriction must therefore be directed to a genuine public concern rather than used to prevent peaceful belief, worship, expression, or participation. The supplied sources support both parts of the balance: religious communities must respect the common good, and states must protect minorities against coercion and discrimination.
Thus the claim that religious freedom grounds minority protection is well aligned with Catholic teaching. It rests on the dignity and freedom of every person, protects religious life in public as well as private, and calls for reciprocal safeguards across religious majorities and minorities. Its purpose is neither to impose religion nor to erase it from public life, but to enable people of differing convictions to participate in society without coercion and in a manner consistent with others’ rights and the common good.