Mob hurts parishioner, destroys property over language clash in India

Published: 2007-12-18

BANGALORE, India (CNS) -- A controversy over languages used during Catholic liturgies heated up as a mob hurt a parishioner and destroyed church property in the Archdiocese of Bangalore. About 50 people destroyed marble tablets displaying the Our Father in several languages on the walls of St. Anthony's Church Dec. 16, reported the church news agency UCA News. The English, Konkani, Malayalam and Tamil tablets were destroyed but the one in Kannada was spared. Before the intruders entered the church, some of them beat up a parishioner with polio, said Father Irudayam, the pastor of the parish in New Guddadahalli, located on the southwestern outskirts of Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka state. Kannada- and Tamil-speaking Catholics in the archdiocese have clashed for more than three decades. Confrontations have often turned violent, especially during the Christmas and Easter seasons. Kannada is the state's official language and local Catholics demand that the archdiocese use it in church services. However, more than 70 percent of the archdiocese's Catholics are ethnic Tamils from the adjacent Tamil Nadu state. They also want the liturgy in their own language.

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