By Herald Malaysia
KOLKATA — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s highly publicized visit to the headquarters of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata has evoked mixed reactions from Church and lay leaders in India.
Rubio, a Catholic, was accompanied by his wife, Jeanette, and US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor on May 23 during his two-hour tour of the Mother Teresa House and Nirmala Shishu Bhawan, where nuns care for the elderly, the destitute, and vulnerable children.
He also interacted with members of the congregation, and hailed Mother Teresa’s work as a “living example of the Catholic faith in action.”
Rubio acknowledged the lasting influence of Mother Teresa’s work and the role the Missionaries of Charity continue to play today, according to Church officials in Kolkata.
“It was amazing to witness Rubio’s love for the Church and the gospel values as he and his entourage participated in a private Mass at the Missionaries of Charity headquarters,” Father Dominic Gomes, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Calcutta, told UCA News on May 25.
He said this visit would send “a strong message on religious freedom and strengthening it.”
Community leaders also said the visit may send a signal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to rethink the proposed amendment to the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), which they believe targets Christians and their institutions.
Gomes recalled the Federal Ministry of Home Affairs refusing to renew the Missionaries of Charity’s FCRA license on Dec. 25, 2021, citing unspecified “adverse inputs” and restoring it within a fortnight following immense international blowback and domestic criticism.
The decision blocked the charity’s foreign funds, starving hundreds of its shelter homes and clinics across the country of vital resources.
Fr Dominic Emmanuel, a former spokesperson for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, said Rubio’s landing in Kolkata, rather than New Delhi, is certainly making more waves.
“It was not just a flying visit, but the fact that he spent about two hours [at the Missionaries of Charity] is going to be like a thorn in the flesh of both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP] and its parent body, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh [RSS or National Volunteer Corps],” the Divine Word priest said.
Emmanuel noted that Rubio’s visit has to be seen in the context of what a US top official brings — a sort of reassurance to the Indian Christian community, living under fear and many restrictions.
He cited a May 21 Washington Examiner article by Chris Smith, a member of the US House of Representatives, urging Rubio to work with his Indian counterparts to withdraw the proposed FCRA amendments.
“Improving US-Indian relations must include the freedom for faith-based organizations to operate in India without having their assets nationalized,” Smith wrote, voicing the fear among Indian Christians that the proposed changes to FCRA were meant to rob them of their assets.
Referring to criticism by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat that Mother Teresa’s work was not for the love of the poor but to convert the poor, Smith wrote: “It is this work for the poor that the RSS and the BJP want to stop at all costs, by slowly but steadily axing foreign funding.”
John Dayal, official spokesman of the All-India Catholic Union, said “it is unlikely” that the private conversation of Modi and Rubio discussed the issue of Christians in India, a religious minority.
Some Christians expected Rubio to take up the FCRA amendment bill and arbitrary revocation of FCRA licenses during his meeting with officials, including Modi, “but nothing of the sort seemed to have happened, and they were left disappointed,” Dayal told UCA News on May 24.
The Modi government presented the FCRA amendment bill in the Indian parliament in March this year, claiming it was meant to ensure greater regulation and proper utilization of foreign donations meant for charitable works in the country.
The amendment bill, however, was temporarily shelved and is expected to be taken up for discussion in the upcoming monsoon session of the Indian parliament.
“I don’t think Rubio will address our concerns with Modi as his priorities are different,” a senior Catholic Church official based in New Delhi told UCA News on May 24.
The White House has prioritized strategic partnership, trade deals, and defense cooperation with Modi’s government, he lamented.
However, The Organizer, a weekly mouthpiece of the RSS, said: “Rubio’s Kolkata pilgrimage ultimately revealed something much larger than personal faith or diplomatic courtesy.”
In a commentary published on May 23, titled “Revisiting the Myth behind Mother Teresa,” it said the visit was not merely religious tourism.
“It came at a politically charged moment, amid renewed Evangelical pressure regarding India’s proposed amendments to the FCRA, repeated American religious freedom campaigns, targeting India, and growing scrutiny of foreign-funded missionary ecosystems operating inside the country,” it noted.
Christians make up 2.3 percent of India’s more than 1.4 billion people, and the majority, about 80 percent, are Hindus.
