Scandal-plagued Indian bishop steps down amid concerns for his life
In a one-line statement, the Vatican Press Office said the pontiff had accepted the resignation of 58-year-old Kannikadass Antony William, who has faced multiple accusations of wrongdoing including sexual misconduct, corruption, kidnapping and even collusion in murder at various points over his stormy six-year tenure in Mysore.
In 2019, a group of 37 priests in the Mysore diocese wrote to the Vatican demanding Antony’s resignation on the grounds that he had fathered children from various affairs with at least four different mistresses, that he had strong connections with corrupt police officials and local bureaucrats as well as politicians, and that he had ties to organized crime.
Another Mysore priest, Father Gnana Prakash, wrote to the pope’s ambassador in India in July 2022 to lodge additional charges against Antony, including complicity in the death of four priests who had signed the 2019 letter and who later died under mysterious circumstances. Praksah also asserted that Antony was guilty of rape, sodomy and embezzlement.
In August 2022, Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai was forced to deny charges that he had attempted to help Antony cover up his misdeeds, after a recording of a conversation between the two men surfaced in which a paternity test was discussed. Gracias insisted the recording had been selectively edited, and that he had encouraged Antony to take the test but never offered to influence its results.
On Jan. 9, a group of community leaders in Mysore met with Moras at the bishop’s residence in order to allege that there’s a conspiracy to kill Antony, hatched, according to the group, by some of the priests involved in lodging charges against the bishops.
https://cruxnow.com/church-in-asia/2024/...r-his-life
In a one-line statement, the Vatican Press Office said the pontiff had accepted the resignation of 58-year-old Kannikadass Antony William, who has faced multiple accusations of wrongdoing including sexual misconduct, corruption, kidnapping and even collusion in murder at various points over his stormy six-year tenure in Mysore.
In 2019, a group of 37 priests in the Mysore diocese wrote to the Vatican demanding Antony’s resignation on the grounds that he had fathered children from various affairs with at least four different mistresses, that he had strong connections with corrupt police officials and local bureaucrats as well as politicians, and that he had ties to organized crime.
Another Mysore priest, Father Gnana Prakash, wrote to the pope’s ambassador in India in July 2022 to lodge additional charges against Antony, including complicity in the death of four priests who had signed the 2019 letter and who later died under mysterious circumstances. Praksah also asserted that Antony was guilty of rape, sodomy and embezzlement.
In August 2022, Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai was forced to deny charges that he had attempted to help Antony cover up his misdeeds, after a recording of a conversation between the two men surfaced in which a paternity test was discussed. Gracias insisted the recording had been selectively edited, and that he had encouraged Antony to take the test but never offered to influence its results.
On Jan. 9, a group of community leaders in Mysore met with Moras at the bishop’s residence in order to allege that there’s a conspiracy to kill Antony, hatched, according to the group, by some of the priests involved in lodging charges against the bishops.
https://cruxnow.com/church-in-asia/2024/...r-his-life
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"