National Issues & Ecumenical

Aims & Goals 

AIMS

1.It has been felt that progressively the Cathedral has become very inward looking and detached from the mainstream.There are many pressing human needs in society and we do not seemed to overly concerned about them.

Therefore this committee aims to focus on them, hihglight the actions which could be taken and motivate people to participate in ths venture.

2. Our Church is the Cathedral Church and can very well be called the City Church. Therefore, it behoves us to take the lead.

Accordingly, we rpopose to have a dialogue with other Churches and Denominations.

3. Somewhere,we seem to have lost sight of what our Lord did, viz;Teach, Preach & Heal.

We should take a lead in the Diocese to bring the emphasis  back to these basics.

GOALS

1. To conduct seminars/workshops to identify the pressing human needs and evolve action plans to meet them to the extent possible.
2. To involve our congregation members in the above activities and also coordinate with iother Churches in furthering these goals.

3.To suggest to the Diocese and also participate in the following:

(a) TEACH – To shift the focus from the elitist schools and spend more time, energy & money on other schools.

(b) PREACH –  Both National Issues & Ecumenical relations &  Mission & Evangelism Committees work together to take forward evangelization, which has taken a back seat in most mainline churches, including the CSI.

(c) HEAL – To help in the revival of the CSI hospitals . The Chanapatna hospital has closed down, the Chikkabalapur is in a bad shape, and the Bangalore CSI Hospital needs all the help it can get.

Aims & Goals Achieved : The following programmes have been conducted :

2014-15    :-  General elections
Seminar on Can Christians make a difference ?  

Eminent politicians from Congress, BJP, Aap,JDS  were speakers .

Congregation & members from different denominations attaneded..

Christmas for All  which is organised every December wherein religious leaders from different faiths attend our programme and speak about the relevance of Christmas and Christ’s teachings. It is wonderful to see all faiths sing  Christmas carols alongwith us.

2015- 16 – Programmes & seminars held

Church & The Christian – Prof C.T Kurien prepared the background note .

This topic was to bring out the differences in the perception of Clergy & the Laity.  It was well attended by various denominations.

There was a open forum  where many queries were answered.

Minority Schemes & Benefits –Govt of India & Karnataka.

Jointly organised alongwith Karantaka Welfare Development Authority.

A seminar was held which  was well attended and  the speakers were the

Minority Minister of State, Shri. Tanveer Sait,

Chairman – Minority commission,IAS

Ivan D’souza- MLC

Prominent IAS officers attended .

INTER FAITH RELATIONS & DIALOGUE

St. Marks’ through this committee interfaces with all Heads of all other Faiths.We regularly interatct and attend important meetings with the following leaders.

Heads of Faiths in Bengaluru :

Mr. Sidney Moses                –        Jewish Community

Mr. Feroze Abduallh            –        Muslim Community

Mr. Rajesh Bhantia              –        Jain Community

Mr.J.S.Dhody                         –        Sikh Community

Mr.Gurusharan Singh           –        Sikh Community

Mr. Shereyar Vakil               –        Parsi Community

Mr.Siddhartha                       –        Buddhist Community

Mr. Wooday Krishna           –        Brahmo Samaj

Also we represented our Cathedral to the Sikh community programmes like 350^th Birth Anniversary of Shri Guru Gobind Singhji.

Rainbow Forum for peace & Harmony amongst all religions  held in remembrance of Fr. Ronnie Prabhu .

Muslim programme

Jain Community Programme held at Freedom Park in April 2017.