The Indian government has banned the charity association of Mother Teresa of Calcutta from receiving foreign funds, arguing that the Catholic organization does not comply with local legal conditions.
According to the Indian Ministry of the Interior, in a statement cited by the Associated Press, a request by charity missionaries to renew their overseas fundraising license was denied over Christmas. The ministry faced “unfavorable information” while reviewing the association’s application for renewal.
This came at a time when there were several attacks on Christians in parts of India by extreme right Hindu groups that accuse pastors and churches of violent conversion. According to a report by the Evangelical Brotherhood of India, the attacks took place mainly in the state of Karnataka, where about 40 cases of threats or attacks against Christians have been reported this year.
Bengal State Minister Mamata Banerjee sparked outrage this Monday by tweeting that the government froze the bank accounts of the charity’s missionaries.
However, the government in the meantime clarified that it did not, and the association confirmed in a statement that the accounts were not frozen, but said that the license to receive funds from abroad had not been approved. “This is why … we ask our centers not to pay the bills. [de contributos estrangeiros] until the issue is resolved, ”the Associated Press said in a statement.
Earlier this month, Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta in 1950 in Calcutta, was under investigation in Gujarat after complaints that girls in shelters were forced to read the Bible and recite Christian prayers. The association denied the charges. Missionaries of Charity run hundreds of shelters that welcome the world’s most needy people, whom Mother Teresa of Calcutta called the “poorest of the poor.”
India has the second largest Catholic population in Asia, but an estimated 18 million Catholics represent a minority in the predominantly Hindu nation of about 1.4 billion. The work of Mother Teresa, declared a saint in 2017, two decades after her death, earned her the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize.
