To live by principles in Church ministries, improve our religious life and enrich our Mission

Dibrugarh: In order to promote Good Governance in Church and religious life a seminar on “Good Governance, Law and Equal Discipleship for participative Leadership” was held at Bishop’s House, Dibrugarh from 7-8 May, 2012. It was jointly organized by Streevani, Pune, Montfort Social Institute, Hyderabad and Legal Cell for Human Rights (LCHR), Guwahati in collaboration with Seva Kendra, Dibrugarh, the social development wing of the diocese for priests, sisters and brothers.

Bro. Varghese Theckanath SG, director of Montfort Social Institute, addressed the 45 participants and dwelt at length on Good Governance and citizen’s charter. He emphasized on the necessity of good governance for all churches and institutions and to have a citizen’s charter in place for all the various services we provide to the people. In order to achieve or to be successful, the mission of the church or the institution should be very vivid and clear. At the same time the services that we provide should be based on “right mode” and not on “charity mode”.

The Director of Legal Cell for Human Rights (LCHR) Fr. Ravi Sagar SJ, dealt on the Constitutional rights of every person and on some legal issues that affect our day to day lives. The importance of filing First Information Report (FIR) and how to follow it up was stressed much. Sr. Shoba, the Deputy Director of LCHR dealt with the dynamics of the seminar.

Sr. Julie George SSpS, Director of Streevani, Pune exposed the CBCI document on “Gender policy of the Catholic Church in India” and stressed the need for its implementation in order to create a gender just Church and society.

The sessions were very interactive which gave the participants enough time to raise their doubts and queries. Their doubts and queries were clarified during the sessions. Bishop of the diocese Rt. Rev. Joseph Aind Bishop of Dibrugarh was present throughout the program. He exhorted his priests and sisters to put in practice the good governance principles. There were 12 women religious and the rest were Priests of the Diocese.

All the participants appreciated the program, especially the good governance. The sisters except one had not even seen the Gender policy or heard about it. Some of the suggestions were to have the Gender policy as one of the topics for marriage preparation course and include it in the syllabus in the formation houses etc.

Trafficking of young men and women from North east to other parts of the country was discussed at length to see what concrete step can be taken.

Source: CRI, Fr. Joseph Manickathan for media & communication in the Diocese