CNEWA

“You’re Welcomed with Big Smiles”

CNEWA President Msgr. John E. Kozar spoke with Catholic News Service recently about his pastoral visit to India.

As blog readers here know, CNEWA President Msgr. John E. Kozar just completed a pastoral visit to India. He discussed the trip and his impressions recently with Catholic News Service:

Vocations to the priesthood and religious life in India’s two Eastern Catholic communities are strong and a sign that the missionary spirit of St. Thomas the Apostle flourishes, said the president of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association.

At multiple locations in southern India — in seminaries and houses of formation for men and women religious — Msgr. John E. Kozar said he was “blown away” by the quality and quantity of the candidates for religious life in the Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara churches during his 12-day visit.

“The first impression when you walk into a huge seminary chapel or gathering hall is that you see 200, 300, 400 seminarians,” Msgr. Kozar told Catholic News Service March 14 from his office in New York. “That in itself is a culture shock when you compare it to what you know here (in the United States).

“You’re welcomed with big smiles. You’re welcomed with songs and a warmth that reaches out and grabs you,” he said…

…Msgr. Kozar also said he found collaboration among the Eastern and Latin rites — especially among their leaders, the bishops — to be strong, resulting in meaningful service to children, people with handicaps and poor families.

Most touching on the visit, he said, was seeing children, some with severe physical handicaps that affected their mobility, full of joy as they danced, sang and greeted the CNEWA team. Msgr. Kozar said he was impressed by the education standards upheld by the sisters, giving children a chance to move out of the dire poverty in which their families are rooted.

For that, he credited the sisters who oversee the institutions for creating an environment that upholds the dignity of each resident, without regard to physical ability, illness or family background.

Individual donors, through CNEWA, sponsor about 18,500 children in numerous educational and health and wellness programs.

“The children in many parts of the world of poor are really the jewel in their sincerity, their honesty, their simplicity. They are the reflection of the hope, the idealism, the love of that country, the best of that culture,” Msgr. Kozar said.

Read more of Msgr. Kozar’s interview here.

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