NEW DELHI, India – The bishops of India have offered their congratulations to the country's newly elected president, Ram Nath Kovind, urging him to live out the oath he will take to serve the well-being of the people.

COCHIN, India – The Catholic church in India criticized growing intolerance and mob violence targeting religious minorities over cow protection.

NEW DELHI – Church leaders have expressed solidarity with ethnic Gorkha people who are on an indefinite strike protesting for a separate homeland in the Darjeeling area of eastern India.

KOCHI, India – A high court in southern India has ruled that Christian priests and nuns are entitled to their right to property despite their vows of poverty, signalling an end to a centuries-old tradition that has left many in the clergy destitute.

MUMBAI, India – Despite being located on private property, a 122 year-old cross was demolished late last month in a suburb of Mumbai, sparking legal action from the local archdiocese.

For Thomas Lindale, going on a mission trip to India with Free the Children (now WE Charity) was really about being God’s light in the world.

COCHIN, India – The church in India's Kerala state has formed a group of priests, nuns and laypeople to respond to the pastoral needs of transgender people, reported ucanews.com.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India – For vendor Elizabeth Antony, who ekes out a living selling fish on the roadside in the heart the capital of Kerala state, the Christmas season is not very festive.

NEW DEHLI, India – A cloistered nun in India came out of her convent for an extraordinary reason: to attend a graduation ceremony for her doctorate in Aerospace Engineering.

BHOPAL, India – The grave of a nun murdered in central India 21 years ago has been exhumed as part of a process that may eventually lead to her canonization.

The Indian branch of the Catholic social welfare organization, Caritas, has announced plans to fight discrimination and recruit transgender people — a striking step for an official church organization.

TORONTO – St. Anthony of Padua is known as the miracle worker saint. Many people ask for his intercession for the loss of material things, but also for loss of peace of mind or sense of direction. Those who seek his help are never lost, forgotten or left behind.

CALCUTTA, India – Seventeen-month-old Anirban Mukherjee playfully touches his mother's face with his fingers at Shishu Bhavan, the Missionaries of Charity children's home.

NEW DELHI – India is rejecting a U.S. panel’s charges that the religious freedom of minorities in the world’s largest democracy is being violated with tacit support from elements in the ruling party.

COCHIN, India – One of the prominent female Catholic theologians in India said the Church has lost its identity as “Church of the poor.”