Church's impact goes far beyond the numbers. (News in Brief).Rimini, Italy -- The Catholic Church's influence in India is far greater than its share of the population, the Archbishop of Bombay said on August 20. Cardinal Ivan Dias made his comments in this coastal city where he is attending the Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples The Meeting for friendship among peoples (Meeting per l'amicizia fra i popoli in italian) is a multi-event festival held every year in Rimini, Italy in a week at the end of August. The first edition took place in 1980. . Although missionary work Noun 1. missionary work - the organized work of a religious missionary mission work - activity directed toward making or doing something; "she checked several points needing further work" da'wah, dawah - missionary work for Islam has been going on for two millennia in India-- St. Thomas the Apostle St Thomas the Apostle, Judas Thomas or Didymus, was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. The Synoptic Gospels and Acts list this "twin" (Toma means twin in Aramaic, as does Didymus is considered its first evangelizer--Christians number only 23 million among a population of more than one billion. Catholics total 18 million. "Our presence goes well beyond the numbers," the cardinal said. "We offer 20% of school education, 10% of all programs for the illiterate and health programs, 25% of all projects for widows and orphans In typesetting, widow refers to the final line of a paragraph that falls at the top the following page of text, separated from the remainder of the paragraph on the previous page. The term can also be used to refer simply to an uncomfortably short (e.g. , 30% of all available structures for lepers and AIDS patients. In my diocese alone, Bombay, we have 150 schools and university colleges in which 400,000 pupils study. Given these percentages, it is easy to understand that the majority of students are not Christian. In fact, it is increasingly frequent that the highest state offices are held by people who have studied in Catholic schools," Cardinal Dias continued. The cardinal said that India has just over 20,000 priests and 81,600 women religious. India has the largest number of candidates for the priesthood of any country in the world. It has 10,537 diocesan and religious students of philosophy and theology, a figure far higher than that of the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. (5,109), Italy (6,433), Spain (2,728), Mexico (7,059), and Brazil (8,831), all countries with far larger Catholic populations. "In my diocese--the largest in India--we have 115 parishes, and in 80 of them there is perpetual eucharistic adoration Eucharistic adoration is a practice in the Roman Catholic and in Anglican Churches, in which the Blessed Sacrament is exposed to and adored by the faithful. When this exposure and adoration is constant (that is, twenty-four hours a day), it is called perpetual adoration. from 5 o'clock in the morning until 10 o'clock at night. In six churches we also have all-night adoration," the cardinal continued. Asked about Mother Teresa of Calcutta's process of beatification beatification: see canonization. , Cardinal Dias said: "For India, for Albania, and for the whole world, Mother Teresa is already a saint. As regards the canonical process, it is advancing rapidly. She will soon be proclaimed 'venerable,"' he concluded (Zenit, Aug. 20/02). |
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