Caritas India as part of her journey towards embracing the 60th year of her existence organized its 2^nd regional Assembly in the Northeast Region on 28^th October 2021.  The Assembly held at the magnanimous Silver Jubilee Memorial Hall of North East Diocesan Social Forum (NEDSSS) commenced with the Eucharistic Celebration presided by Most Rev. John Moolachira, Archbishop of Guwahati, President of NEIRBC, and Chairman of Regional Forum. Fr Dr Paul Moonjely, Executive Director of Caritas India welcomed the gathering and set the context of the day saying, ‘We are at a threshold to reflect and contemplate on the years traversed together along with our diocesan partners and other stakeholders in the pursuit of integral development and nation-building’.

Fr Dr Paul Moonjely, the Executive Director of Caritas India, delivered the keynote address stressing on the need to ‘Envision the purpose and focus of building an ambience to draw common pathways in the new post covid and new FCRA environment’. He explicated the purpose of the regional assembly saying “Caritas India is entering the threshold of 60 years and at this juncture, it is absolutely important to come together and introspect how we have journeyed so far in a futuristic manner.” Dr Moonjely also brought to the attention of the participants the realities of our world today – of crimes, of hunger, of poverty – mentioning that the latest statistic that 1 per cent of the population of our country today is enjoying 42% of the riches of our country. According to him these realities coupled with the new post covid and new FCRA environment made Caritas India to take up this journey of reflection and organize herself to meet the challenge. He concluded his keynote address recalling the words of Pope Francis and reminding the gathering that “we need to be courageous enough to be innovative and the clarion call of the day is to adopt the same style of Jesus – New ways of thinking – to be courageous innovators and to travel with the Holy Mother Church in her Synodal Journey through communion, participation and mission”.

In his presidential address, his grace Most Rev. John Moolachira appreciated the work of Caritas India and said that “the organization has been able to render commendable services to the neediest and along with Caritas India the social service societies of the church was able to make visible the compassionate face of Jesus to humanity”. “The challenge of our social service societies are resources and there is a felt need to be able to locally mobilize the fund. Secondly, there is a need for lot of volunteers both from among the laity and the religious and thirdly, the need to move from charity or relief mode to development and empowerment” his grace observed.

Fr Dr Jolly Puthenpura, Assistant Executive Director, Caritas India shared the background of the upcoming diamond jubilee of Caritas India and introduced the key questions for brainstorming. Dr Puthenpura’s presentation highlighted ‘Perspectives & new Paradigms for Promoting the Social Service Ministry in the Dioceses & Regions’. He accentuated the point that “the Proclamation of the Gospel, Evangelization of the World & Socially Transformative Actions go hand-in-hand and that the DSSS in the dioceses need to be an animating body getting the faithful involved in the works of the church and that there”. “

The regional assembly also had shared a brief background on the purpose of the regional assembly and the Pre-meeting survey by Ms Babita Pinto, Chief Operations Lead, Caritas India. Ms. Pinto in her presentation commented that the FCRA amendment has prompted Caritas India and many other diocesan institutions to establish new operational arrangements to strengthen partnership management and that the regional assembly creates a scope of engagement to bring all our stakeholders for interaction and reflection, capture Regional developmental aspirations, unfold the transformation agenda, and reflect on Partnership Engagement in the Post Covid and FCRA environment.

The key takeaway from the regional assembly was to explore different ways of making the social apostolate of the church more impactful, promote social movements and networks, make the region and diocese sustainable, etc.

While Fr Dr Ousepparampil commented that there need to be a restructuring of the social service organizations of the church, Fr Laloo emphasized that the capacity building of the diocesan directors is an important concern and their need to be sustained efforts in making the leaders competent in the professional front.

Fr Dr Moonjely observed that there is a lot of commonalities in the discussions from the region as well as from across the nation. He then exhorted the members present to ‘look west’ for assimilating the catholic social teachings and the inspirational thoughts of Pope Francis to translate it into effective works of facilitating development and positive change in our communities around. He also stated that it is in this context that this comes together on the theme ‘Fraternity in Humanity, walking together. Drawing from the 3^rd encyclical of Pope Francis ‘Fratelli Tutti’ Fr Dr Moonjely said that the theme presupposes a coming together that is to reflect upon “how we look at our brother, how we look at the larger humanity and that we cannot look at the humanity minus creation because the creation and the humanity walk together, it’s a complementing dimension of the glory of God.” he further mentioned “the core of ‘Laudato Si’ – the call to listen to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor – as the core responsibility of those involved in a social service profession.” “These dimensions should be the daily awakening call for us and if that awakening call really comes to our ears and hearts as a kind of wake-up call that will make the change that we are here for” Dr Moonjely concluded.