The Reverend Simon Palathingal, 62, who hails from a rich business family (who is active traders in Gold, Banking, Real Estate, Timber in Kerala, India and who considers themselves as Brahmins who converted to Christianity by St. Thomas the apostle, For that matter, each rich Christian family with little lighter skin considers themselvers Brahmins converted to Christianity by St. Thomas the apostle. Matter of fact is Hindu Brahmins were not present in Kerala in AD 57 when St Thomas believed to have reached Kerala coast of Cranganore. Kerala coast was inhabited by aboriginals during this period. However there were immigrants or traders (who came with Jews or Romans) who reached Kerala mainly from middle east countries like Armenia, Antioch, Syria etc. before St. Thomas. These immigrants had sexual relationship with locals and a mixed breed of people existed in the coastal regions of Kerala. They had lighter skin and where close to the rulers of Kerala) returned to Milwaukee, 14 years after leaving, to plead guilty in a Wisconsin court August 8 for sexually molesting a nine-year-old boy during his earlier sojourn.

Though he had publicly denied any wrongdoing, Milwaukee detectives who had arrested him outside a Metuchen, New Jersey parish in June revealed in the criminal complaint that Palathingal admitted to having sex with the minor, but blamed the boy for initiating it.

The criminal complaint notes that Palathingal told one of the two detectives who had met him with a warrant outside his New Jersey home: "The defendant stated... that the boy was the aggressor 100% and he, the defendant, would give in.'

Details of the agreement were not available, as Palathingal was required by state law to formally plead guilty before a judge who will then initiate the sentencing phase. The priest could serve a few years in a Wisconsin prison before being deported to India.

The boy, now 23, moved out of Wisconsin to Louisiana soon after the molestation started, and was under the impression till about a year ago that Palathingal was in prison. When hundreds of sex scandals in Catholic parishes across America began springing up, Nick Janovsky felt compelled to contact the officials in Milwaukee and was shocked to find that Palathingal was a free man, his lawyer James S Smith, who has represented over 60 boys allegedly molested by priests, had told India Abroad.

Reacting to Palathingal's efforts to shift the blame to him, Janovsky told the Milwaukee media: It is such a malicious lie. How the hell can a 9 year old be an aggressor?'

Palathingal was held on a $1 million bond in New Jersey until early August, because of the fear that his family in India (which is very rich Indian wealthy family) could have raised the $500,000 that was earlier decreed as bail. The officials in New Jersey considered Palathingal a flight risk due to the fact that there are several rich and able family members in USA who will do anything to keep their family name safe and not tied up to the child molestation.

The main problem of this arrest is the embarrassment it has created to his family in India which is considered to be the one of the most prestigious families in Kerala, India who can produce a bishop or a Cardinal in the near future. The reason this family became so famous is because there was a RC bishop in the past from this family who was very famous and considered to be a saint. ( All other families in India wanted to marry their daughters into to this alappat palathingal family). This alappat palathingal family has vibrant business in the fiels of Gold, Spices, Timber and vested interest in the South Indian Bank, Catholic Syrian Bank, Federal Bank etc etc. How did this family go this much of ownership of these banks are unknown. Will that be with the help of the church, we do not know. Most of the shares of these banks are still owned by the RC church.

His arrest and subsequent guilty plea has prompted the Metuchen diocese to plan for a radical program to toughen background checks for priests from other dioceses. An extensive database is being created, at a cost of thousands of dollars. Critics of the church want a national database to be created.

Palathingal, who was ordained in India, left Wisconsin for India just when his accuser confided in his mother. He returned a few years later to America, which has a chronic shortage of priests, but served parishes in other states, notably Louisiana. There are complaints that he engaged in inappropriate sexual talk with a boy there, but no charges have been framed.

Metuchen diocese officials told India Abroad that the chapter of Salesians of Don Bosco in Louisiana - a Catholic religious organization specializing in the education of boys - did not inform them that Palathingal had served in Wisconsin.

They assured New Jersey church officials that Palathingal was in good standing with the church. Critics of the Catholic Church have been saying that many religious orders send scandalous priests to far away dioceses - or often out of the country.

James S Smith said had the Wisconsin church officials acted quickly on Janovsky's allegations, Palathingal would have paid for his transgressions long ago. Smith said because a civil suit against the priest was dismissed after a Wisconsin supreme court decision in the mid-1990s barred victims of child sexual abuse from suing the church, Palathingal was able to work in other parishes outside Wisconsin and have a comfortable life.

"From what I know, sexual predators do not stop with one person," he said. "God forbid if there are other victims there, they should not hesitate to speak up. They are not to be ashamed. For the guilt belongs to someone they trusted."

Smith also blamed the diocese of Metuchen. "If they [the diocese of Metuchen] had seriously checked every place Palathingal had been, they would have realized what they were getting," he said.

'After 10 years, we finally have an acceptable plea of guilt,' Janovsky told reporters outside the Milwaukee courtroom, where he was accompanied by his mother and aunt.

'I want to say thanks to the court system for finally bringing justice, because now there will finally be no more victims.'



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 03/04/2010 10:29PM by administrator.

Please post more details about the priests family. Thankyou

It is sad to read this.If all this is true-all I can say is that we all make mistakes ,though I am not condoning this event.The punishment is too harsh.it takes two hands to clap and there seems to be some sort of conspiracy in this happening.I know Rev.Fr.Simon since 45 years and I studied under his proficient
English class in class 9 in 1965. He was a polished young man and very religious too.
Met him again in 2001 and he was a nice person to meet after a long time.He was serving in a parish in Bangalore.
May God give him and the family the courage to go through this ordeal and come out forgiven and clean for the rest of Fr.Simon
God Bless you Fr.Simon

Best Regards
Stan

THIS IS A REPLY TO STAN COSTA

I REALLY LIKE YOUR REPLY. SIMON PALATHINGAL IS A NICE MAN SO GOD SHOULD BLESS HIM.
THAT IS BULL SHIT.

JUST BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU SAY SOMEONE IS NICE.

A KID NEED TO GROW UP WITH OUT SOMEBODY INCULCATING SEXUAL THOUGHTS INTO HIM UNTIL ATLEAST HE OR SHE IS 18.

A PERSON WHO COMMITS A SEXUAL ACT ON A MINOR IS A COWARD AND HE IS NOT NICE. HE SHOULD BE IN JAIL.

UNFORTUNATELY IN INDIA, 40% OF KIDS GO THROUGH SOME SORT OF SEXUUAL EXPLOITATION FROM ADULTS.

INDIA HAS NO LAW OR NO JUDGES TO DEAL WITH IT. YES INDIAN JUDGES HAS TO DEAL MORE SERIOUS CRIMES THAN MERE SEXUAL ASSAULTS. WE ARE TAKLING ABOUT BILLIION PEOPLE WITH NO RESOURCES TO TAKE CARE OF MASSES


IF SIMON PALATHINGAL DECIDED TO FORGET HIS ROOTS AND COMMIT ADULTERY IN USA HE SHOULD BE IN JAIL

WHEN YOU MATURE IN YOUR LIFE YOU DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT TO BE IN YOUR LIFE.

YOU Can be a doctor, you can be a teacher or you can be a priest

If you decided to become a priest be a PRIEST not a child molestor

A Catholic priest who admitted to repeated sexual assaults of a Milwaukee boy in the early 1990s was sentenced to 16 years in prison Tuesday but may be released as soon as 2008.

Father Simon Palathingal, 62, needed to spend at least four years in prison for his crimes, said Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Karen Christenson, to get treatment for being a sexual offender. The boy was 9 and 10 years old when Palathingal, who was studying at Marquette University, assaulted him covertly while attending the boy's family gatherings as a respected friend in social gatherings.

"You betrayed his trust," Christenson told Palathingal. "You abused your power, and you destroyed his faith and the faith of his family."

Palathingal, a member of the Salesians of Don Bosco religious order, was arrested in July in South Amboy, N.J., where he had been living and working as a priest. He later pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree sexual assault of a child in an arrangement that included dropping two additional charges. He knew the boy, Nick Janovsky, through another priest, Father Dennis Pecore, who was convicted in 1994 of abusing Janovsky, his nephew.

Janovsky, now 23, stared toward Palathingal on Tuesday as a prosecutor read an explicit description of the specific abuses. Janovsky's relatives bowed their heads during the description, and some embraced each other tightly to endure the graphic details.

Then Janovsky told Christenson he wanted the priest to get something near the maximum possible sentence of 40 years behind bars, more if it were somehow possible.

"That would be the only way to guarantee that this man would not harm other children," Janovsky said.

Instead, the judge gave Palathingal two 16-year sentences to serve at the same time. That was less than the 20 years Assistant District Attorney Gale Shelton had requested, but more than the five to six years Palathingal's attorney, Edward Hunt, had suggested.

Under laws in place at the time of the offenses, Palathingal will be eligible for parole after four years. Janovsky said afterward he was "disappointed" Palathingal might return to society within a few years.

"I think it's a mistake," Janovsky said. "This man should be locked up for 16 years and not have access to children."

Palathingal appeared drawn and passive behind his thick glasses. The slight, gray-haired priest had initially told detectives that 9-year-old Janovsky had instigated the sex acts, but the priest recanted that in court. He said he had questioned his own faith during the five months in jail.

"I have hurt and harmed a kid, Nick Janovsky, through my own selfishness," Palathingal said. "This is how God wants me to pay for it.

"No matter how much I have suffered or will suffer, my pain pales in comparison with what Mr. Janovsky has endured all those years."

Palathingal said he hopes to get out of prison and return to his native India as a priest. That drew criticism outside the courtroom from Peter Isely of Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests. "When he gets out, he's going to be able to get right back in the pulpit, get right back in the schools," Isely said.

If you want to know what priets enjoy in USA please click the link below.



[www.bishop-accountability.org]

April 10, 2012 PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A nun testified Monday in a landmark church sex-abuse trial that she was fired from a southeastern Pennsylvania parish for reporting concerns to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia about explicit mail that a priest had received.
Sister Joan Scary said she lost her job as director of education at St. Gabriel's in the rural Montgomery County town of Stowe, near Pottstown, after she complained to then-Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua about the Rev. Edward DePaoli shortly after his arrival in 1995. She said she was concerned about mail DePaoli began to receive, including computer disks from Denmark and magazines containing "deplorable" content, none of which included DePaoli's clerical title or indicated that his address was a rectory.
DePaoli, who was defrocked in 2005, is not a defendant in the trial but prosecutors are using the testimony about him and others to build a case against Monsignor William Lynn, who was the Archdiocese of Philadelphia's secretary of clergy from 1992 to 2004 and entrusted within investigating complaints against priests.
Lynn is the first Roman Catholic official in the U.S. charged with endangering children for allegedly moving priests suspected of molestation from parish to parish without warning anyone of previous sex-abuse complaints. He is on trial with the Rev. James Brennan, who is charged with the attempted rape of a 14-year-old boy in 1996. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Scary said Monday she was unaware when he came to St. Gabriel's that DePaoli was convicted in federal court in 1986 of possessing child pornography and sentenced to probation. The conviction was not announced in the parish but Scary said she did think it odd that "he didn't really have duties."
"During Mass he would sit in the sanctuary and wouldn't do anything, other than just be there," she said. "Most priests would either read the gospel, give a homily, help out with communion ... it just seemed strange."
She testified she was warned by the church's pastor to keep any concerns about DePaoli to herself "or I could pack my bags and leave."
That's exactly what happened after she anonymously mailed one of DePaoli's magazines to Bevilacqua, she testified, with a handwritten note asking whether the cardinal thought that it was appropriate material for a priest. She was fired by the Rev. James Gormley, the pastor, in May 1996 after seven years at St. Gabriel's.
A detective went on the stand Monday to read a series of memos regarding the case of the Rev. Thomas Shea, who was removed from active ministry in 1994, a week after the archdiocese was contacted by an attorney who said his client was sexually abused as an altar boy by Shea in the 1970s at Saint Helena parish in Philadelphia. In one memo, Lynn suggests the priest might have been "seduced into it" by the then-altar boy.
Shea, who was sent to a Catholic treatment facility and diagnosed as a pedophile with the emotional maturity level of a 12- or 13-year-old boy, was permitted to retire in 1995 and said he had only two victims — the boy whose lawyer contacted the archdiocese and a boy who had since died.
In 2002, however, the archdiocese received an anonymous letter from someone who said his or her family member was one of several boys molested by Shea in the 1970s at Saint Joseph parish in Collingdale and "cannot to this day stop running away from his life."
A detective on the witness stand told Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington that investigators found no evidence that the archdiocese tried to locate the letter writer or any other potential victims.

I don't think Fr. did anything wrong.I know him too.People think they can play any dirty game and make money.If you hurt a innocent catholic priest it will effect your family and generations.
he ment the boy is not normal.And not he strated first.The person who talked about this topic is a malayalee who is jealous of Alappatt family.Work hard and pray ,god will make you rich in this world and other world.
God will answer to the suffering of the father.

why do you think we don't hear more of the stories.Now priests don't talk to kids,or share their pains.The priests are now in the safe line.It is not good for the community.

Fr Simon was the Vice Principal atDon Bosco Egmore Chennai during the 80's. There were allegations of molestation at that period when I was a student at the same School......

Men of Kerala are always proactive. They want to find out what is lacking for Indian Athlestes. So Kerala Forest minister decided to travel to London to compare Indian athletes to rest of the world.

Just a thought how does Forest and Sports go hand in hand. What does a Forest minister know about sports?


Hmmm.......Sports is a joke in India. There is no money to be made in sports. However there is lot of money to be made in Forest services.

Make money in forest and screw the athletes. What a life.

Indian Hockey coach fucking a chinese girl at government meals expense.
<

However our Indian women's head hockey coach M K Kaushik insisted he will fuck only an Indian girl. What a class. Go India

Respected sir,


I am Hockey lover. I want to bring to your kind notice some of the worst things happening in the Indian women hockey team.

There is a videographer Mr. Basavaraja, whenever the team goes for exposure Mr. Kaushik will take him because he arrange some prostitutes for him in the star hotels in abroad.

I am here by attaching some of the photos which were taken in the bedrooms in China and Canada exposure of the teams and every Exposure he pays Rs.30000/ to Mr. Kaushik along with drinks bottles and some gifts.

There is a video analyser for the team because that person will not provide anything he wants so he will not take the video analyser. Video analysis is the most important for the team performance, video recording any person can take but nobody is there to question him. Because he provides girls to his room in hotels in abroad he will take him only.

There is one more person Dr. Rajan, Mind trainer his qualification is B.E and he do not have qualification about psychology or Mind training his duties trying to specify girls to lessen to Kaushik. He will select the team according to his benefits for money and gifts otherwise who will lessen to his benifits.

There are many worst things which we cannot write here, but one example I will give there one call T H Rangitha from North East she was the Captain for the Junior Indian women Hockey team for the World Cup. He has called her to his room during night time but she has not agreed so after the world cup she has not been selected for any tournaments. So I am here by requesting you to kindly Save Indian women Hockey team.

Some photographs attached here with..................


I hope you will take any right action for these because it's a matter of our nation and beneficial for our country sports. I will wait 2 or 3 days for your action after that I relies this on press, my intention is not a blame anybody because I know whole baldie system is corrupt. Right now I have no good evidence against Kaushik but after that your right action definitely punished women player will open her mouth against Kaushik how he did torture them and videographer Mr. Basavaraja will also tell everything when his remand under a polices custody.

Thank you very much.

Hockey lover

Wow.

A Girl complained about sexual harassment against her male coach.

Immediately our ever so prudent Indian officials set up and all MEN team to investigate the issue. One can easily figure out what the outcome will be. - the girl had bad intentions.

This is the way Indians handles sports issues.

1. When a girl is raped , only a man can investigate the case


Read this:

Indian Hockey was rocked by a fresh controversy on Tuesday with a member of the women's team sending a written complaint alleging sexual harassment against one of the coaching staff.

Following the complaint, Hockey India [ Images ] has set up a four-member committee to probe the allegation, Hockey India general secretary Narendra Batra said.

The committee comprises Rajiv Mehta, as its chairman and former players Zaffer Iqbal and Ajit Pal Singh and Sudharsan Pathak, Batra said.

Well done Mr. Batra. You saved the Coach

The girl who complained against the coach is doomed.

2. All women sports teams are coached by Men. Not even a single Lady coach.

In India, only men know how to coach. So our shining INDIA is a force to be reckoned with in sports and Olympics. You will see the medal tally in London Olympics 2012

3. Head of the most Indian sports organizations are either police or politician.

Haryana State Police Chief (above)who started a Tennis Club to train young athletes and became the president of the Tennis club, however main intention was child molestation which forced a 16 year old kid to commit suicide after Mr. Rathore molested her.

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Sports in India is politicians or Policeman playing field.Including women teams.

Now you know why India will struggle hard to get a medal at Olympics

TS Ranjitha Devi was missing from the team. TS Ranjitha Devi can not play with Kaushik in her panties

It’s been a public humiliation for Abhishek Manu Singhvi, one of the country’s top lawyers. Caught on camera with a woman (he says it was morphed and his driver says so too), one of the less crude jokes these days is there are three types of MPs in the Upper House now— elected, erected and ejected.
Singhvi eventually had to quit as chairman of the standing committee on law and justice and also as Congress spokesperson.
It’s not the first time a sex CD has ruined a reputation in public life. A powerful man with his pants down is an easy target. Yet there is a bigger debate now—over where we draw the line about private acts becoming public and whether we are playing it for cheap titillation.
India is fast shedding its coyness about making sex scandals a matter of public debate. And in the age of the internet, Singhvi surely won’t be the last one to have his private moments downloaded and viewed by millions. Modern Indian politicians now have to pay dearly for their sexual indiscretions. While the jury is still out on whether these cases should be treated simply as a private matter between two consenting adults or an action that denotes abuse of power, the fact is, till now, none of the sex scandals involving Indian politicians have ever led to any revelations beyond the sex. No public or national interest has really been served by the hours spent circulating, watching and gossiping about the CDs.
Voyeuristic in nature, cases like these have often resulted only in titillation, humiliation and little else. In some instances, the cases were given a quiet burial after they faded from public memory, in others they have been used to settle scores or damage and dent seemingly promising political careers.
Indeed, an unfortunate offshoot are the many rumours and plausible half-truths of power-brokers setting up starlets to entrap politicians and businessmen—the classic honey trap, sex-for-blackmail strategy.
Private detectives confirm that election time brings politicians to their door in droves, essentially to spy on rivals. And during investigations, it is not uncommon for MMS clips and videos to be made to tarnish opponents. While all recordings may not be of a sexual nature, even trade-offs are recorded to be used as a tool for blackmail later.
A private detective who has been a former IB official relates the case of a woman in Sikkim who facilitated a huge land deal by tom-toming proximity to senior politicians in Delhi and UP. According to him, “we recorded the lady’s tall claims and handed over the tape to the client. There is a huge probability that he may have used the tape later against the people mentioned in it”.
Political sex scandals, to be sure, are not entirely a 21st century phenomenon for us. The first big one in India goes back to the late ’70s and involved Suresh Ram, the then 47-year-old son of Babu Jagjivan Ram, defence minister in the Janata Party government. Explicit pictures of him in a compromising position with a 21-year-old Delhi University student were splashed across the centrespread of Surya magazine, then edited by Maneka Gandhi. At the time, Jagjivan Ram was considered a powerful opponent to Indira, with even a chance of becoming the first ever Dalit prime minister. The scandal blew that possibility (the ironic footnote is that Suresh Ram eventually ended up ‘marrying’ Sushma Chowdhary, the woman with him in the pictures).
While many would dismiss this episode as an outcome of the dark days of the post-Emergency era, political circles are rife with rumours on how sex and sleaze were used to fix RSS strongman and powerful BJP general secretary Sanjay Joshi. In 2005, Joshi was badly stung, videotaped in a compromising position with a woman, and the CD circulated to members attending the BJP national council in Bombay. Evidently, it was a hatchet job from the ‘inside’. For Joshi, the awkward part was that as a pracharak (full-timer) he was expected to have given up all pleasures of the flesh. He, like Singhvi, claimed it was all fake then and has since been partially repatriated.
Now to put the shoe on the other foot, does the settling of scores by political rivals make public figures deserving of any sympathy? One political commentator says that we are being asked to choose between two kinds of vulgarities. “On the one hand it is voyeuristic, in the sense that directly or indirectly, even when we seek to condemn what is being dished out to us, we become participants of that voyeurism. On the other hand, there is a male conspiracy of silence, particularly in the media that invites us to a ‘yeh sab chalta hai attitude’ towards the use of public power for private transaction.” He argues that if people use public office and power for private transaction—which could be money or personal favours—then it becomes a public issue.
Incidentally, there have also been situations when exposes of this sort have had far greater repercussions than just reputations being destroyed.
In late 2011, Mahipal Maderna, a minister in the Rajasthan government had to quit office and was arrested following allegations of his involvement in the abduction and murder of a nurse, Bhanwari Devi. Secretly recorded videos surfaced, the likely story being that he was being blackmailed by Bhanwari.
Former UP minister Amar Mani Tripathi too is doing life for murdering poetess Madhumita Shukla after she became pregnant and threatened to expose him.
Other worthies who have, comparatively, gotten away a little easier—political reputations destroyed but jail time avoided—include octogenarian N.D. Tiwari, who was seen in a romp with young girls at, of all places, his governor’s residence in Hyderabad.
Then there’s former Orissa CM J.B. Patnaik, accused of being involved in group sex with minors; Laloo Prasad Yadav’s brother-in-law Sadhu Yadav, reportedly involved in a sex scandal that ended in the suicide of two youngsters, Shilpi Jain and Gautam Singh; Kerala minister and senior Muslim League leader P.K. Kunhalikutty, accused of sexually exploiting a minor and running a sex racket from an ice-cream parlour.
Of course, in the above cases at least, the public-private debate has no standing. In fact, once you are a public figure, you are fair game. In the case of a public figure, it is humanly impossible to segregate the public life from the private. People in public life have chosen to be there. They cannot then say that their private life is beyond public scrutiny.
While society may view such cases only as immorality, there are legal grounds for the spouses of both parties to file a case of adultery, punishable by five years imprisonment.
Cobrapost editor Aniruddha Bahal, who brought sting operations and hidden cameras into Indian consciousness, believes every case needs to be discussed and treated separately. “In the Singhvi case, it’s at best a matter between two individuals and should be left at that. Why must there be speculation about favours done or exchanged when there is no complainant? There have been various casting couch stories earlier but in each of those cases there was an aggrieved party. In this case, there is no such person.”
Public figures are people who have the authority to influence people, decisions and policy. They have to be accountable. Besides, the circumstances and place where such acts happened…these are important and incriminating when discussing such cases.
Some however worry about public figures being vulnerable to blackmail. In the last 10 years, the rapid availability of technology has made politicians targets. Technology, if misused, is dangerous…because it can be used to settle scores and damage the credibility of individuals. Which is why there is an urgent need to set up forensic sciences agencies that can authenticate the claims made by individuals in CDs and other recordings. There is also a need for stricter laws in place so that those misusing technology do not go unpunished. Cyber laws need to be better. After all, we are at a crossroads here—while technology has developed in a big way and plays a big role in the world we live in, the system is yet to catch up with it.
Till we can figure out how to do that, such scandals will continue to out, and even if the targets get stay orders from the court, they will land up on the Net and will be circulated widely. In Singhvi’s case, there’s all the usual ingredients—sex, CD and suggestions of blackmail by the Congressman’s driver. The details are fuzzy, what is clear is that the camera has become an actor.
CD Baat: Sex Tape Sagas
Indianleaders are prone to indiscretions of a sexual nature. Some of the more bizarre cases….
2012. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, After securing an RS berth, the Congress lawyer-spokesman is caught in a compromising position in his SC chamber. Despite HC injunction, CD goes viral. Singhvi resigns as chairman of the standing committee on law and justice. 2012. Tara Chowdhary, Arrested for allegedly luring film extras into the flesh trade, the small-time Telugu starlet comes out with startling claims—says top politicians as well as bureaucrats were her clients.The focus is on a retired IPS officer.
2011. Mahipal Maderna,Secretly recorded video shows Rajasthan minister in romp with murdered nurse and midwife, Bhanwari Devi. Sacked from Ashok Gehlot’s ministry, Maderna is under arrest. 2011. Amar Singh, SC lifts a five-year gag order on audio CD containing conversations featuring the Samajwadi Party leader. Sidelined by Mulayam Singh Yadav, Amar Singh pushed into political wilderness.
2009. N.D. Tiwari, 84-year-old Congress veteran resigns as Andhra Pradesh governor after sting operation featuring him and three young girls surfaces. Pushed into political oblivion, he resurfaces in the 2012 Uttarakhand poll campaign. 2009. Azam Khan, Samajwadi Party heavyweight and known baiter of Amar Singh accused by Jaya Prada of distributing her nude pictures. The filmstar-turned-politician goes on to win the 2009 LS polls.
2005. Sanjay Joshi, Videotape of senior RSS pracharak and BJP general secretary in a compromising position with a woman forces his resignation and suspension from party. Joshi remains in the wilderness till 2011 when he was informally reinducted and put in charge of UP polls. 2005. P.S. Natarajan, Jharkhand IGP caught on camera with a tribal girl young enough to be his daughter—who secretly gets the act filmed and gives it to the media. Natarajan is dismissed from service.
1996-97. Gopinath Munde, The then home minister in the Shiv Sena-BJP govt in Maharashtra is accused of regularly visiting a tamasha dancer in Pune. Later, a tape surfaces. Munde did not resign; nor did he file any cases of defamation against the persons who made the charges/allegations. 1994. Jalgaon rape case, Influential politicians, businessmen and officials accused of running a forced-sex racket involving around 500 women, many of them minors, in Maharashtra. The gang lured school- and college-going girls into their trap, raped them, taped the acts which were then used to blackmail the girls. Two Congressmen arrested, but later acquitted for lack of evidence.
1978. Suresh Ram, The 46-year-old son of the then defence minister Jagjivan Ram shown in a series of explicit photos with a Delhi University student, Sushma Chowdhary, in monthly magazine Surya, edited by Indira’s daughter-in-law Maneka Gandhi. Costs the senior leader a chance to become the first Dalit PM. Ram later said to have married Sushma.
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When A. K. Antony formed the present UDF Government in May 2001, the newly elected cine actor-turned politician, Ganesh Kumar of Kerala Congress (, was sworn in as a Minister. He became a Minister when a petition of his wife, Dr. Yamini Thankachi, was pending before the Thiruvananthapuram Family Court alleging that she was constantly ill-treated by him because of the concubines he maintains within the city.

According to the Times and the Statistical Yearbook of the Church, in 2006 there was one priest for every 1,510 Catholics in the United States. That contrasted with a ratio of one priest for every 6,276 Catholics in Mexico, one priest for every 8,513 Catholics in Brazil, one priest for every 4,214 Catholics in Nigeria, one priest for every 4,343 Catholics in Kenya, one priest for every 6,845 Catholics in Uganda, and one priest for every 8,478 Catholics in the Philippines.

Only in India, among the countries supplying “missionary” priests for the United States, is the ratio more favorable than that of priests-to-Catholics in the United States. In India, as of 2006, there was one priest for every 786 Catholics.

So the evidence is clear: the Catholic church in the United States is drawing down the number of priests in countries in much greater need in order to supplement the dwindling ranks of the priesthood in the United States.

Real truth about nuns of Kerala and India.

Each word from the book 'Amen - an autobiography of a nun' has a hidden meaning.
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"By the time I was in Class XII, we were in deep financial trouble. My mother was struggling to find money for my monthly fees and my father did not bother about it anyway. My scholarship amount would inevitably be spent on household expenses. Thrissur Bishop Joseph Kundukulam, who had been close to our family from the days when he was the priest of our parish, was perturbed about our financial situation. He told my mother we could approach him whenever we needed money for my studies. “No one would understand the financial problems of the middle-class,” he said."

Above passage need to be analyzed in detail. This above passage throws light into hwo much a priest and church is respected in the daily life and how helpless girls are forced into nunnery
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"I had to go to the Bishop House twice for fees and the experience was traumatic. I had to walk along the wall of St Thomas College suffering all the comments and paper arrows from the boys. And ignoring the stares of the priests, I would go up the stairs at the Bishop House. The moment the Bishop saw me, he would extend an envelope with

Rs 15.50 and I would walk back without even saying thanks. "

Why the trip to Bishops house was traumatic.? Why didn't her mom go to the Bishop palace?


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After my Class XII exams were over, I thought it was time to reveal what I planned to do with my life. I told my mother: “I kept it a secret so far because you told me to. But every day I am renewing my pledge to Jesus. I can’t live without him.”

Everyone in the family came to know that I was leaving home forever. My father started to cry, my little brother began fighting, my sister asked several questions but my mother sighed and said: “The Lord is asking for the best among my children. God needs to be given the centre piece of the fish. I can’t deny anything that Jesus asks for.”



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/04/2010 09:56PM by administrator.

There is a region in India in which Christians are ten times as numerous – 20 percent, as opposed to 2 percent of the national media – and above all live in peace.

That region is Kerala. Christianity has extremely ancient roots there, and the Christian imprint is still extraordinary. Kerala is not rich, but it is by far the most educated state in India, with very high levels of education among women as well (in the photo). It is the state that for many decades has had the most balanced birth rate, fundamentally because all of the girls go to school, and therefore get married later than girls elsewhere. Most of the schools there, of every order and degree, are Christian.

Kerala is also the Indian state with the highest level of literacy. Since last year, a weekly edition of "L'Osservatore Romano" has been printed there in the local language, Malayalam. 20,000 copies of it are sold, twice as many as the Italian language edition.

The extraordinary nature of Christianity in Kerala has been highlighted in the latest issue of "Oasis," the multi-language international magazine published by the patriarchate of Venice, and aimed at the East.

The issue opens with an editorial by the bishop emeritus of Changanacherry of the Syro-Malabar Catholics, Joseph Powathil. It contains a reportage from Kerala, supplemented with a fascinating and detailed reconstruction of the history and unique features of Christianity in the region, written by the priest and patristics scholar Thomas Koonammakkal.

The following is an extensive extract from the reportage.

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The Amazing Secrets of Kerala

by Luca Fiore


"We are different flowers of the same plant". Basheer Rawther, a lawyer in Changanacherry, chooses this image to describe the relationship between the Hindus, Muslims and Christians living in Kerala. It is of no importance that Rawther belongs to the Muslim community. Ask anyone in the street and more or less they will give you the same answer. This region in south-west India seems to be a world apart with respect to the image that this country has given of itself over the last few months. Here, all things considered, the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, which is just over a thousand kilometres away, and the pogroms against the Christians of Orissa, are seen as dramatic but distant events. [...] In this context, Kerala stands out as an exception that cannot be ignored.

On arriving in Kerala it is not long before one understands that things work
differently with respect to the big cities of the country that everyone looks to for economic records. None of the splendours of the Bollywood that sparkles in the Mumbai hotels, none of the Silicon Valley-like activity to be felt in Bangalore. Life goes on slowly, like the small canoes sailing down the internal waterways, the backwaters, which run along the coast and make their way into the interior. [...] On their journey the boats sail past small villages with mosques, temples and schools, and tiny groups of houses where people live on narrow strips of reclaimed ground, just a few metres wide. [...] The women wear almost exclusively saris or the salwar kameez (tunic and trousers) and it is rare to see them dressed in the western style. For the men it is different, even if the lungi, a piece of coloured material that is wrapped around their waists, is the most common form of clothing for everyday life. In Kerala it is not rare to see large elephants in the roads used as working animals: they transport tree trunks or are used as hoists in timber-yards. [...]

The 35 million inhabitants of Kerala live on an average pro capita income of ?550 a year. The two staples of the local economy are fishing and agriculture, so much so that the hundreds of thousands of excellent graduates coming from local universities are forced to look for work in the rest of India or on the other coast of the Arabian sea. Almost one million and a half of the inhabitants (about 4%) live abroad, particularly in the countries of the Persian Gulf. It is no mystery that it is the remittances of the immigrants that maintain the local economy and now that the development of cities like Dubai is paralysed by the economic crisis, it is foreseeable that the flow of money from abroad is destined to slow down.


THE CHRISTIANS OF SAINT THOMAS


But Kerala boasts other records. In 1957, in fact, it became the first region of the subcontinent where the democratic elections were won by a Marxist party. It is also the first Indian state as regards literacy: 91% against 65% in the rest of the country; it is the first Indian region for longevity (ten years more compared with the national average age of 69) and has the lowest number of socio-economic inequalities between men and women or between castes. Lastly, Kerala is the Indian state with the highest rate of religious pluralism. This is in fact a concrete example of real coexistence, notwithstanding the mosaic of communities forming it: most of the population is Hindu, but 25% is Muslim and 20% is Christian. This is a huge percentage if one thinks that the average Christian population in India is calculated at 2.3%. [...]

The coexistence among the different religious groups, in Kerala, dates back to time immemorial. Saint Francesco Saverio, the Spanish Jesuit missionary who landed on these Indian shores in the wake of Vasco da Gama, was surprised to find a considerable number of Syriac rite Christians. The arrival of Christianity in India, in fact, dates back to 52 AD according to tradition when the Apostle Thomas arrived in Kerala owing to the contacts with the colonies of Jewish merchants already present on the coasts of the Arabian sea. The Apostle’s tomb is kept in Cennai (Madras) and the Christians of these areas are called Thomas Christians, the Christians of Saint Thomas. Even though historically speaking there is no certainty about the arrival of the Apostle on the coasts of Kerala, the local churches – in particular those of Syriac rite – are proud of their direct connection with the apostolic tradition. The peaceful arrival of Islam dates back to the VII century; this came about by means of the Arab spice merchants. [...]


THREE RELIGIONS AT THE SAME SCHOOL DESKS


At Fort Cochin all the complexity of the culture and history of Kerala can be felt. The traces of the colonial age, the baroque churches and the Portuguese style houses with their deep blue window frames alternate with the little shops selling typical products, craftsmen’s workshops, humble precarious houses. In Fort Cochin one can also visit an ancient synagogue that bears witness to the presence of a small Jewish community. Almost everywhere, stuck on the brick walls, can be seen the electoral posters of the local Communist Party. In the main street of the old part of the city there is one of its two offices with a mural depicting Che Guevara. The bizarre pantheon of this Marxist party in fact houses, besides the Argentinean guerrilla, also Saddam Hussein and Mother Teresa of Calcutta. It is even possible to see the three faces looking out on posters during public protests. What Saddam Hussein and Mother Teresa have to do with it can soon be explained: along with Che Guevara, here in India they have become the symbol of the fight against poverty and the colonial power of the west.

Even though it is true that the Muslim community is concentrated in the north of Kerala and the Christian one in the south, it must be emphasised that ‘ghettoes’ inside the towns and villages do not exist: Christians and Muslims are often neighbours. From the terrace of one of the many shops in Fort Cochin, the old Portuguese colony around which present day Kochi has been built, you can see a mosque, a church and a Hindu temple practically in the same neighbourhood. The children of the different religions begin to live side by side sitting at their school desks. From being classmates, they will often go on to be colleagues at work. At Changanacerry, for example, everyone knows how important is the friendship, which began at school, between H. E. Msgr. Joseph Powathil, emeritus Archbishop of the local diocese and former president of the Indian Bishops’ conference, and Narayana Panikker, secretary general of the Nair Service Society, a charitable Hindu association with 5,600 sections in Kerala for a total of 6.5 million followers. There exists a heartfelt friendship between them that has encouraged and promoted the good coexistence between the Christian and Hindu communities. Even during one of the most critical periods in the history of India, between 1967 and 1970, when 1,365 incidents between Hindus and Moslems were recorded, only 142 took place in the south of the country.

But what gives the physical sense of this coexistence is above all the religious feasts, of which there is a great number. On saints’ days hundreds of stalls selling all sorts of objects appear in the streets which are lit up with a thousand coloured lights. Life comes to a halt in the town or village and everyone, also Hindus and Muslims, take part in the feast. [...] The relations between the different religions, in some cases, border on syncretism: it happens that the Hindus worship Christian saints seen as incarnations of their one divinity.


THE FACTORS BEHIND CONVERSION


Conversions among the different groups are rare, but there are some. In Kerala nobody practises proselytism except the hardened Pentecostals. It can happen that some Hindus convert to Christianity without incurring too many objections from their family. In a small parish of Kottayam, for example, one of the parishioners converted from Hinduism. She is an illustrator of children’s books and on Sundays she stays after the mass to wait for her twelve year old daughter to come out of Sunday school. In the same parish a Muslim woman married a Christian and was baptised. They speak about it openly, without any fear at all. This in unthinkable in many Muslim countries. The fact that this woman has incurred no problems, or that she is still alive, says a lot about the general attitude in Kottayam. H. E. Msgr. Abraham Mar Julios, Bishop of Muvattupuzha, recounts that recently thirty Hindu families in his diocese, who had immigrated from Tamil Nadu, converted to Christianity. They are very poor families, which came to Kerala because the breadwinners had found work in a gravel quarry. What convinced them to leave their own religion? "The people I spoke to" – says Mons. Mar Julios – "told me that they had been captivated by the parish community of their village. They were hit by the fact that the Christian community is a ‘praying community’, by the fact, that is, that Christians pray together and that they are conceived as a community. Hindu prayer is always individual and rarely does the keeper of the temple know the people who go to the place of worship to any extent. The parish priest usually knows all his parishioners by name".

Father Lorenzo Buda is a monk, he has a long white beard growing down over his orange habit in which his painfully thin body is wrapped. He lives in a monastery in the middle of the jungle on the southern Ghat mountains, on the border with Tamil Nadu. The village is called Idukki and is little further than 60 kilometres from Kottayam. Here the people are very simple and very poor. Fifty people have asked him for baptism during his ten years in Idukki. "It’s difficult to say why they ask to become Christians" – explains Father Buda – "but some people told me that they had never felt loved in such a way before".