What's New

Shrines play an unusually big role in Catholic life in southern India. Almost all Catholic churches there have shrines in front and inside. Towns with a significant Catholic population often feature a Catholic shrine near the center of town or at a crossroads, and there are many unofficial shrines built and maintained by individual families or groups of families . Pilgrimages and shrines in India are not simply a populist phenomenon, something elites might avoid.1 1Corinne Dempsey, Kerala Christian Sainthood: collisions of culture and worldview in South India , (New York: Oxford University

Feasts, a tremendously important part of parish life in India, are a period of nine or 10 days that include Masses, novenas with visiting preachers, music, processions, and food. In Kerala, nothing compares to the energy put into parish feasts.

The family is an enormously important—some say all-powerful—social institution in India. Where geographic mobility has increased, and where striving and middle class Indians have become more focused on higher education as a means of advancement, older norms are shifting, but family is still a powerfully cohesive and determinative force in people's lives, and marriage is seen as an alliance between two families, not just two individuals. Multigenerational families are the norm, and beyond that, extended family networks can be quite influential. First and second cousins are traditionally

An even larger charismatic center than the Renewal Retreat Centre is the Divine Retreat Centre in Kerala, which hosts week-long retreats in seven languages on two campuses throughout the year.

The Renewal Retreat Centre, a charismatic center in Bengaluru, is striking for the intensity of its services, and the extraordinary way that it weaves Euro-Catholic, evangelical, and Hindu religiosity.

The rise of charismatic practice in India has been credited with retaining large numbers of Catholics who may have otherwise been inclined to join a newer Evangelical church in their area.

A majority of Indian Latin rite Catholics are of Dalit class origin, the class once considered “untouchable." Higher-caste Syrian Christians in Kerala tend to be better off than other Keralites in terms of education, land ownership, employment among men, employment status, and housing quality.

Homes may feature religious pictures, small or larger brass oil lamps with a cross on top (a variation on the brass oil lamps ubiquitous in Hindu homes) and dedicated shrines with a whole array of images on a tabletop or wall.

Catholicism in India is characterized by intense devotional practice that draws from Hindu, Syrian, colonial Portuguese and contemporary Catholic practices. The connections between Indian Catholicism and the rest of Indian culture are often on public display.

Christian concepts and references are woven throughout the fabric of Jamaican life. Ordinary people and political leaders regularly cite biblical and other Christian aphorisms regularly. Business gatherings and meetings for national associations often start with prayer. Jamaicans often struggle over apparent cultural contradictions and self-perceived moral shortcomings that seem to undermine their overt claims to Christian commitment, but despite any contradictions, Christianity is a major cultural frame for Jamaican life. Jamaicans often claim that the country’s cities and towns have more