We Desperately Need More Saints Today

Dr John Singarayar SVD

Last year, I watched Father Anthonyswamy stack boxes of canned goods in the pouring rain. His small rural church had organised a food drive for flood victims, and there he was—not just preaching about love from the pulpit, but living it in the mud and chaos. A volunteer turned to me and said, "He is not just our priest; he is our saint." That simple observation sparked something deep within me: the Church desperately needs more saints today.

But I do not mean the marble statues or stained-glass heroes we admire from a distance. I mean ordinary people choosing to live extraordinary lives of faith, right where they are. The grandmother praying her rosary for wayward grandchildren. The teenager volunteering at the homeless shelter instead of scrolling through social media. The single mother working two jobs who still finds time to teach Sunday School, because "these kids need to know God loves them."

We have made sainthood feel impossibly distant, like it belongs only to St Francis giving away his fortune or St Teresa lost in mystical prayer. But authentic sainthood is not about perfection or headline-grabbing miracles. It is about showing up day after day with a heart cracked open to both God and neighbour. It is about making faith tangible in the beautiful mess of everyday life.

The Church faces real challenges today. Trust has been shattered by scandals. Pews sit empty each Sunday, especially of young faces. Our culture pulls us relentlessly towards screens and schedules, away from the quiet spaces where we might encounter the Divine. In times like these, saints are not just inspiring; they are essential. They become living bridges between Sunday worship and Monday reality, proving that holiness is not confined to cathedral walls, but carried in ordinary hands and hearts.

Look back at the early Church. Those first Christians were not superhuman. They argued, doubted, and stumbled just like us. Yet they had saints among them; not just the famous apostles, but countless unnamed believers who shared their bread, forgave their enemies, and faced persecution with startling courage. Their lived witness lit a fire that transformed the world. We need that same flame today.

Saints emerge not from supernatural gifting, but from small, repeated choices made in the hidden corners of life. They are forged in pre-dawn prayer, in choosing patience over anger, in trusting God through heartbreak. I think of Sonia from my parish—exhausted from working two jobs to support her children, yet she still teaches catechism every Wednesday evening. When I asked why, she simply shrugged: "The kids need to know they are loved." Sonia may not be a theologian or mystic, but her life preaches more powerfully than any sermon.

The Interior Castle

Dr Tania Fernandez

All Souls Day is one of the most significant days in the Liturgical calendar for me personally, because it sits at the intersection of theology and mysticism. It brings to the forefront one of the Church's most beautiful teachings – "the communion of saints." How easy it is to let that escape our attention while reciting the Apostles' Creed, and what better time to reflect on it than All Souls Day.

The Feast of All Souls Day began around 998 AD in France. The Benedictine monks of Cluny, France had a deep sense of spiritual solidarity with the dead. The practice spread throughout Benedictine monasteries, and was incorporated throughout the Latin Church by the 13th century. All Souls Day is a liturgical expression of the Church doctrine that the Church is one body in three states.

1. The Church Militant - those living  on Earth.

2. The Church Suffering - those being purified in Purgatory.

3. The Church Triumphant - the saints in heaven.

Spiritual Relationships continue beyond the grave 

With Dad and Mum having completed their earthly journey and having returned to be with Our Lord, I found my solace in the profound mysticism that this day offers. It is this mystical dimension that connects us with our loved ones who have gone before us. Carmelite mysticism echoes this profoundly. Carmelite mystics St Thérèse of Lisieux, St Teresa of Avila, and St John of the Cross focused on the journey of those who have passed on, not as something that increases the distance between us, but as the communion of love that continues to unite us with the souls that have gone before us. In many of their writings, they implicitly address the communion of souls, love after death, and the continuity of spiritual relationships beyond the grave. This is not an escape from the human reality of death, but the awakening of a new spiritual reality to the wisdom that the Church has always taught us. 

‘Freedom of Religion Act’ in India is an Infringement on Constitutional Freedom

Bishop Dominic Savio Fernandes

India takes pride in being the world's largest democracy, upholding its secular credentials, where every citizen is guaranteed the right to religious freedom. The founding fathers of the Indian Constitution, conscious of India's pluralism, enshrined in Article 25 the fundamental right to "profess, practise and propagate" one's religion freely in accordance to one's conscience, subject only to public order, morality and health. Article 19(1)(a) safeguards freedom of speech and expression, which would include the right to share one's beliefs, while Article 21 protects the right to life and personal liberty, encompassing the freedom to choose one's own belief system or to reject it. Together, these provisions affirm an individual's right to follow one's conscience freely.

Yet, in stark contrast to this Constitutional vision, several states in India have enacted the 'Freedom of Religion Act', which is in fact an Anti-Conversion Act that denies people the moral obligation and the fundamental right to follow their God-given conscience. 

This so-called 'Freedom of Religion Act', which should have been termed as 'Anti-forced Conversion Act' in the first place, ostensibly meant to protect religious freedom and prevent forced conversions or conversions through "fraud or inducement," has become an instrument of harassment, particularly targeting religious minorities like Christians.

The very name 'Freedom of Religion Act' is a misnomer. Instead of safeguarding the individual's right to freely convert to any religion of one's choice, these laws place restrictions on conversion itself. They invert the logic of liberty; instead of protecting freedom, they presume guilt. Once arrested, the burden of proof rests not on the complainants, but on the accused, who must prove their innocence. This turns the principle of justice upside down, and the law becomes not a shield, but a sword — wielded by fundamentalists to target religious minorities. 

There have been indications, in various media outlets, of widespread misuse of the 'Anti-Conversion Acts' which have been masked as 'Freedom of Religion Acts' in many States across India, in spite of there being little or no evidence of forced conversions. As a result, families have been torn apart by false complaints, and pastors and lay Christians have been jailed merely on suspicion. 

Sixty Years of the Historic Council Teaching on Inter-religious Maitry: Nostra Aetate

Archbishop Felix Machado

God surprises us when the Church gathers together and invokes the Holy Spirit. This is what happened during the Second Vatican Council. It had not been foreseen that the Church would reach out to other religions, affirming that "one is the community of all peoples, one their origin, for God made the whole human race to live on all the face of the Earth. One is also their final goal - God. God's providence, manifestation of goodness, and saving designs extend to all" (Nostra Aetate, 1). 

A Brief History

The iter of the Nostra Aetate is interesting. Hitler brutally killed six million Jews in the concentration camps. This happened a couple of decades before Vatican Council II, and the Jewish people were painfully living its memory. A Jew who had survived this fate, Jules Ishak, lived in Paris, France; he had lost his wife and the whole family in the concentration camp. He had dedicated his life to raise awareness of this dreadful event, known as "Shoah". He met with Pope Pius XII who granted him audience and listened to him. Later, Jules Ishak met Giuseppe Roncalli (the future Pope John XXIII) who was Apostolic Nuncio in Paris in the 1950s. Jules Ishak was not alone; other Jews were also pleading with the Church to make sure such a thing should never happen again, for anti-semitism had taken deep roots in Christian conscience. The Church had outright condemned anti-semitism, but needed to eliminate its roots. Some strong and high-level teaching was necessary. When Cardinal Roncalli became Pope John XXIII, and announced the Council, the Jews became more active, asking for a "declaration" against anti-semitism. Pope John XXIII appointed the German Jesuit Cardinal Bea to prepare a brief declaration, which Cardinal Bea did. When that came to the floor for discussion before the Council Fathers, it received attention, but the Bishops asked for another paragraph to be added so as to accommodate Muslims; other Bishops from the Asian continent asked that the declaration be enlarged to include people of all religions (Hinduism and Buddhism were explicitly named) and the result was Nostra Aetate, Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions. The Council Fathers approved the final draft, and on October 28, 1965, Pope Paul VI promulgated this historic document. 

Intellect In Chains

Academic Freedom Under Siege in India (2014–2025)

Hasnain Naqvi

In May 2014, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance assumed power with a sweeping mandate. Over the past eleven and a half years, academic freedom across India has witnessed a steady erosion. Universities and centres of learning—once spaces for dissent, critique, and intellectual pluralism—are increasingly being remade in the image of the dominant political ideology. What follows is a survey of that transformation – how academic autonomy has been captured, thought-policed, historical narratives re-engineered, dissent marginalised, and critical thinking delegitimised. 

The Global Backdrop: Decline in Academic Freedom

The 2025 edition of Free to Think, published by Scholars at Risk (SAR), documents 395 attacks on higher education worldwide between July 2024 and June 2025—evidence of an intensifying global trend of academic suppression.

In that period, India featured prominently as an example of how democracies are adopting authoritarian practices in the academic world.

The V-Dem Institute's 2025 Academic Freedom Index places India in the bottom 15 per cent of 179 countries, rating it as "severely curtailed." Once scoring 0.58 in 2015, India's academic freedom rating has nosedived to 0.16.

The decline coincided with the rise of the BJP and its ideological allies. These macro indicators find expression in micro-level ruptures across India's universities—through appointments, curriculum overhauls, suppression of dissent, and politicisation of campus life.

 Installing Ideological Gatekeepers: The Capture of Institutions

One of the most direct ways to control academic discourse is through personnel. Since 2014, there has been a deliberate strategy of placing right-wing and RSS-affiliated individuals in positions of institutional authority—Vice Chancellors, Directors, Heads, and faculty.

Critics note that in many cases, these appointees lack strong academic credentials relative to their predecessors. The placement of ideologues rather than scholars ensures that research agendas and institutional ethos align with political directives.

In several BJP-ruled states and Central institutions, campus protests have found VCs unsympathetic or outright hostile. In State universities, student unions have been curtailed, disbanded, or left dysfunctional—undermining the democratic space within campuses.

Furthermore, across India, public universities are witnessing the dissolution or non-functioning of student unions—an unmistakable effort to depoliticise the campus from within.

New US Study throws light on Priests' Personal and Pastoral Priorities 

Gina Christian

A new study on U.S. priests shows that many report satisfaction with their ministry, but trust in bishops and major superiors is still low, although improving. In addition, many younger priests are at risk of burnout and loneliness, as their responsibilities increase amid a decline in vocations — but Youth, Family ministry and Evangelization are key pastoral priorities. And while priests in general were somewhat lukewarm on the theoretical concept of synodality, they are in practice rather good at it.

Those are among the results published in "Morale, Leadership, and Pastoral Priorities: Highlights from the 2025 National Study of Catholic Priests" by Brandon Vaidyanathan, Stephen Cranney, Stephen P. White and Sara Perla. The study was released Oct. 14 by The Catholic Project at The Catholic University of America, and serves as a follow-up to its landmark 2022 national study. 

The new survey sought to "more deeply understand American priests' experiences of ministry 'on the ground,' as well as assess any changes in their morale and confidence in Church leadership," said the report authors, who also looked at the priests' "pastoral priorities and needs." 

Flourishing, but burnout looms

On balance, said White, "American priests are flourishing, and their confidence in bishops has slightly improved since 2022."

As in 2022, respondents averaged 82 out of 100 on the Harvard Flourishing metric, which measures five key areas: "happiness and life satisfaction, physical and mental health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, and close social relationships," according to the website of Harvard's Human Flourishing Program. Yet respondents' assessment of how well their respective dioceses or religious orders fared was considerably less positive, said the report.

Researchers analysed priests' morale by presenting three statements, drawn from their previous survey, designed to measure respondents' negative talk about priestly ministry, as well as feelings of being emotionally or physically drained due to ministry work.

The report found "noticeable differences" between diocesan and religious priests regarding burnout, with 7% of the former showing high levels of burnout, compared to only 2% of religious order priests. In addition, said researchers, "44% of diocesan priests showed at least one symptom of burnout, compared to only 31% of religious priests."