New Delhi, Aug 16 (UNI) The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) on Thursday expressed its profound grief and sorrow at the unprecedented floods affecting Kerala, causing heavy loss of lives and damage to crops, houses, cattle and property.
"The Catholic Church is already out in the field through her Wing of Mercy and Charity, Caritas India," it said in a statement.
"Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India expresses its ardent desire to work with the Government and all like-minded agencies to provide relief and help in all possible ways to the suffering people," the CBCI Secretary General Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas said in a release here.
"Our local Bishops, Clergy, Religious Sisters and lay volunteers are also involved in relief and succour operations. In different dioceses, Church authorities have opened church schools and other institutions to the displaced people, and are distributing food, clothes and other relief materials. Many parishes, schools and other Church institutions have become the centres of aid and assistance to people in need," the statement said.
The CBCI said - while trying to help people in the affected areas without discrimination of faith, or class, "wherever it is possible for us to reach out, we appeal to people of good will all across the country and elsewhere to come to the aid of our suffering brethren".
"We are also concerned about the health situation in the affected areas," the statement said.
"When the fury and rampage of the floods and unbridled water flow goes away, it would be desirable
to analyse the causes of the floods, and take urgent steps to preserve our environment and prevent further ecological damage to our Common Home, Mother Earth, destruction often brought about by our human actions," it said.
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