Pope Francis on Thursday accepted the resignation of an Indian bishop cleared in early 2022 of charges of raping a religious sister in his diocese.
The resignation of the 59-year-old Bishop Franco Mulakkal as head of the Diocese of Jalandhar comes more than 16 months after his acquittal by a court in India’s Kerala state in January 2022.
The judge in the case found that “the prosecution failed to prove all the charges against the accused.”
The Vatican did not indicate whether it carried out its own investigation into the accusations against Mulakkal, who has denied the claims and contends he was falsely accused after he questioned alleged financial irregularities at the accuser’s convent.
A religious sister with the Missionaries of Jesus accused the bishop of raping her during his May 2014 visit to her convent in Kuravilangad, in Kerala. In a 72-page complaint to police, filed in June 2018, she alleged that the bishop sexually abused her more than a dozen times over two years.
The Missionaries of Jesus is based in the Jalandhar Diocese, and Bishop Mulakkal was its patron.
Malukkal was arrested in September 2018 amid protests calling for a police investigation into the allegation. He was subsequently released on bail.
The bishop was charged in April 2019 with rape, unnatural sex, wrongful confinement, and criminal intimidation. After Malukkal tried to get the charges dropped pre-trial, the Kerala High Court found there was enough evidence to proceed.
He was cleared of all charges by the Kottayam court on Jan. 14, 2022.
Malukkal had also claimed the allegations were made in retaliation against him because he had acted against the sister’s sexual misconduct. He said the sister was alleged to be having an affair with her cousin’s husband.
Mulakkal was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Jalandhar in 1990. In 2009, he was appointed an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Delhi.
He became bishop of the Diocese of Jalandhar in June 2013.
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Vatican City, May 18, 2018 / 12:00 am (CNA).- A newly released document from the Vatican’s theological advisory commission seeks to explain and advance “synodality,” a concept of particular importance to Pope Francis.
Seminarians of the FSSP’s International Seminary of St. Peter. / Photo courtesy of Sophia Institute Press.
Denver Newsroom, Oct 8, 2021 / 17:01 pm (CNA).
On Sept. 28, a community of seminarians from the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter’s European seminary released an album of Christmas Matins, “Sancta Nox: Christmas Matins from Bavaria”. This week, the 17-song collection topped the Billboard’s Traditional Classical Albums chart.
“We are very surprised and grateful that people have already found this recording, and humbled that they have decided to add this music to the Christmas experience and traditions,” said Manuel Vaz Guedes, one of the singers, who is from Lisbon.
Recorded in surround sound at St. Magnus Abbey, Bad Schussenried in Germany, the album features mostly Gregorian chant, sung by seminarians of Saint Peter Wigratzbad Seminary. The abbey was built in the 12th century, with acoustics “perfect” for recording Gregorian chant, said Vaz Guedes.
The seminarians go to the abbey from time-to-time to celebrate special feast days, said Vaz Guedes.
“It was a very inspirational setting for recording this music,” he said.
The album includes a multi-lingual arrangement of “Stille Nacht”, along with several songs arranged by the seminarians themselves.
“We set about bringing our very best to recording music that was representative of the beauty found in the truth,” said Vaz Guedes, who discovered he could sing through Gregorian chant. “I think music is one of the most perfect ways of exteriorizing the faith and one of the most profound ways to pray to God.”
Matins are part of the Divine Office, which priests and monks pray every single day. In the album, Vaz Guedes said, listeners will find the “life and prayer of a seminarian” during Christmas.
“Christmas Matins have a great importance because they precede, immediately, the Christmas night Mass and one of the most solemn and beautiful moments of the liturgical year,” Vaz Guedes said. “We wanted to share how we pray on Christmas night.”
The seminarians recorded the album under the direction of Christopher Alder, a Grammy Award-winning classical music producer and Christian Weigl, a Grammy Award-winning engineer.
“The uniqueness of this recording resides in the fact that we are very young singers singing very ancient and venerable music,” said Vaz Guedes. “The average age of our group is 25 and the average age of the music we are singing is probably 800. That’s a very gratifying collaboration to be part of.”
The music, Vaz Guedes said, can be enjoyed by a wide audience, including listeners who prefer traditional sacred music, as well as those who want to experience peace.
“We must be attentive to the words we are saying and to the beauty of the melody we are singing,” he said. “ We can meditate on the words because they are the formal part of the prayer—they are the prayer we address to God—But we have the opportunity to do it [while] enjoying the beauty of the melody or the harmony, because the beauty of music is a participation of the perfect beauty that is God.”
The FSSP’s North American seminary, Our Lady of Guadalupe, had in 2017 released an album featuring the chants of the Requiem Mass.
This photograph taken on March 18, 2022 shows smoke rising after an explosion in Kyiv. – Authorities in Kyiv said one person was killed early on March 18, 2022 when a downed Russian rocket struck a residential building in the capital’s northern suburbs. They said a school and playground were also hit. / Fadel Senna/AFP via Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 18, 2022 / 12:21 pm (CNA).
While it is logistically feasible for Pope Francis to travel to Kyiv, as the city’s mayor has invited him to do, the danger associated with holding any gatherings with him once he got there makes such a visit unlikely, according to the Vatican’s apostolic nuncio to Ukraine, Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas.
“Yesterday, three prime ministers arrived to Kyiv — the prime ministers of Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovenia. So, logistically speaking, yes, it is possible to come to Kyiv,” Kulbokas, the pope’s representative in Ukraine, told Raymond Arroyo, host of EWTN’s “The World Over,” on March 17.
“I know that Pope Francis wants to do all that is possible for him in order to contribute for peace, so I know for sure that he is evaluating, he is thinking about all the possibilities,” he added.
However, Kulbokas explained, the hope is that a papal visit could involve more than simply a discussion, as can happen readily enough through conventional or online means. Catholics and church leaders would want to pray with him, as would members of the Orthodox Church and other faiths.
While it is certainly something to hope for, he said, the situation is “too dangerous in Kyiv.”
KYIV, UKRAINE – MARCH 18: A woman sheltering in a metro station brushes her daughter’s hair on March 18, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine. Russian forces remain on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, but their advance has stalled in recent days, even while Russian strikes – and pieces of intercepted missiles – have hit residential areas in the north of Kyiv. An estimated half of Kyiv’s population has fled to other parts of the country, or abroad, since Russia invaded on February 24. Chris McGrath/Getty Images
Unable to leave nunciature
Kulbokas, 47, who is from Lithuania, is currently bunkering in the nunciature in a residential area of the Ukraine capital.
He told Arroyo that because of the danger of missiles, the upper levels of the building cannot be used. Authorities have asked residents to reduce their movements to only essential ones, he said.
Sleep, prayer, and the celebration of Mass are all held in the same rooms with no windows, he said, adding that the situation is “dramatic.” The government has ordered some of the local shops to stay open, he said, in order that food and other necessities may be available to the people. He said that he has assistants who make the trip to the shops to buy food and other supplies.
Kulbokas also revealed to Arroyo that he has not left his residence for 21 days, because of the frequent attacks on the city. You can watch the full interview in the video below.
‘I will try to get them out’
In the interview, Kulbokas spoke about the solidarity he feels with the pope and the wider Church during this ordeal.
He shared a conversation he had with Polish Cardinal Konrad Krajewski about the difficulties authorities were having evacuating children from an orphanage in the city, Kulbokas said. Such an undertaking is extremely complicated and risky because of ongoing Russian missile and artillery attacks and the damage that these have done to the city’s infrastructure.
Cardinal Konrad Krajewski and Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk greet children in Lviv, Ukraine. Screenshot from zhyve.tv YouTube channel.
Moved by the dire predicament, Krajewski pledged to take action himself, if necessary.
“Look, Visvalda, if you will see that the situation remains as difficult as it is now for some more hours, then I will come. I will take a car and I will try. I will try to get them out,” the nuncio said the Polish prelate told him. “Even under bombing. Even under shelling. If I die, I die. But at least I will try.”
The exchange made an enormous impression on the nuncio.
Even though he was speaking with a special envoy of Pope Francis, not the pope himself, “I felt his presence,” Kulbokas said.
“He was some 500 or 600 kilometers away from Kyiv, but I was feeling his presence so strongly that it [gave me] courage also.”
Krajewski, who is in charge of the pope’s charitable efforts as papal almoner, will play a prominent role in Pope Francis’ upcoming consecration of Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on March 25.
That day, while the pope leads the act of consecration at St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, Krajewski will do the same in Fatima, Portugal, where the Blessed Virgin Mary first requested Russia’s consecration during her appearances to three children in 1917.
Asked for his thoughts on the consecration, Kulbokas told Arroyo that the war does not just have political and military aspects, but spiritual ones, as well.
The nuncio said he believes that “God wants to tell us something” by allowing this war to occur.
The Blessed Virgin Mary “is the one able to face these satanic deeds,” he said.
Kulbokas added that it is not enough for the pope to consecrate Russia and Ukraine; “all the believers” should join him in consecrating themselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, he said.
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