Nuns to focus on ecology, frontier missions

KOLKATA, India (UCAN) — A Belgium-based female religious congregation is looking to focus on ecology and frontier missions in the 12 countries they now work.

“Reading the signs of the times, we feel the need to translate our charism into concrete action in the field of ecological concerns, and attending to frontier missions not attended by others,” said Sister Arlinda Azaredo, an Indian nun who heads the Daughters of the Cross.

The superior general is in India, having attended the congregation’s Jan. 4-17 Enlarged General Council in Kolkata. She is also scheduled to visit her congregation’s Calcutta province.

She told UCA News on Feb. 7 her congregation is concerned about the effects of globalization and wants to respond to it meaningfully, focusing on ecology, religions and the poor. The previous meeting in 2006 asked them to become “stewards of God’s creation,” she recalled.

The congregation has already taken the initiative to protect and promote ecology through planting more trees, starting vermiculture, water harvesting and garbage separation. Its school in Mumbai has also stopped the sale of soft drinks produced by transnational firms.

Regarding frontier missions, Sister Azaredo cited the congregation’s opening of a mission in Cameroon, one of the world’s poorest nations, in Africa, in 2000.

Presently, some 800 nuns work in 104 communities.

Sister Azaredo said her congregation has decided to work where others are reluctant to go. Her nuns have opened a school for the caste conscious Hindu community of Radhanpur in Gujarat.

Radhanpur residents have insisted the nuns become strict vegetarians, and on several occasions the villagers even checked the nuns’ waste bins. Such are the challenging and difficult situations the nuns live under in frontier missions, she added.

The Calcutta province has 152 nuns, working in Assam, Kerala, Nepal and Sikkim, besides West Bengal. The congregation was founded in Liege, Belgium, in 1833.

IE08778.1588 February 10, 2010 31 EM-lines (304 words)

Religious add “green” vow to consecrated life
Seminary starts academic year by ´going green´