India needs leaders who care for the poor: Catholic Bishop

A Correspondent

SHILLONG: The Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) has said that India needs leaders who work for an economy that seeks especially to help the poor and the underprivileged, protecting their dignity, working for their uplift and enabling them to play a role in nation building.

Recently, CBCI president, Cardinal Oswald Gracias wrote a pastoral letter to the Catholic Bishops of India in the lead up to the Lok Sabha polls wherein he stated that the country needs leaders who will ensure a totally safe environment for all people, particularly women and children and who can safeguard the rights of tribals over land, water and forests.

The CBCI also urged that the elected leaders should take particular care of the dalits and ensure they are not discriminated.

The CBCI also called for promotion of communal harmony and a spirit of national integration through inter-religious dialogue and understanding and also take steps to protect the environment, preserving the riches of nature for future generations.

In the pastoral letter to the Catholic Bishops of the country, Cardinal Gracias said that there is a big gap between the rich and the poor which seems to be widening.

“Many unorganised and casual labourers are barely able to survive with what they earn. Farmers and those in agricultural sector are under serious stress. Further, ethics is losing primacy as the guiding principle of society. Economics seems to be driving forces behind many decisions,” the president of CBCI added.

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