His Eminence Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Archbishop of Bombay and the President of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India, while inaugurating the 30th Plenary Assembly of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI) of the Latin Church, in Bangalore on Sunday 4 February 2018, urged the faithful to become fully Indian and fully Christian. His Eminence Oswald Cardinal Gracias the President of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conference (FABC) and the member of G9, the Cardinal consultors of Pope Francis was the main celebrant of the in the Inaugural Holy Mass of the 30th Plenary Assembly of the CCBI.
As reported by Conference of Catholic Bishops of India CCBI (Facebook), His Eminence Cardinal Gracias remarked that “The Catholic Church needs our nation and India needs the Church. We will be discussing our role as Indian Christians and asking our people, also to become better Indian Christians. This is the call of today to be fully Indian fully Christian.” Further, His Beatitude added, “Our responsibility is to make the gospel values present in society and make people not only think about but also discuss gospel values as an element of evangelization, be it eradication of corruption, spreading of gospel values, truth, justice, selflessness, removal of prejudices exploitation of tribal and oppression of Dalits.” “Pastors should smell the sheep and at the same time they should smell God.”
The one-day meeting of the CCBI discussed matters affecting the Latin Catholic Church in India, which consists of 132 dioceses and 183 Bishops. The Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI) which is the Canonical National Episcopal Conference is the largest in Asia and fourth largest in the world.
