The head of a German donor agency has urged the Catholic Church to place more importance on advocacy in its mission work. “The Indian Church should possess good expertise and a group of good interdisciplinary experts for her advocacy work,” said Monsignor Josef Sayer, director of MISEREOR, the German Catholic Bishops’ Organization for Development Cooperation. He said the Indian Church, rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, “does an enormous amount for Indian society.” For over 50 years MISEREOR, which is also a “learner, a partner in dialogue and a companion in solidarity,” has been committed to fighting poverty in Africa, Asia and Latin America. According to the MISEREOR director, it has supported 1, 600 social projects in India in the last decade. Sayer told around 170 Indian Catholic bishops, priests and lay people attending the February 1-8 Catholic bishops’ plenary assembly that advocacy is “becoming increasingly important” to building a just, peaceful and humane world. Advocacy will help the Church to continue to promote and protect human dignity, justice and the rights of all, especially the poor, he said. Sayer said his experiences at G7 and G8 economic summits showed that the Church is listened to and taken seriously at these forums. Indian bishops, who took part in these forums, “confronted the powerful with the poor’s real experience of suffering, identified mechanisms of injustice, and called for better structural frameworks, including opportunities for the poor,” he told the assembly. Powerful nations “need the expertise of those who work to uphold and protect the rights of the marginalized,” he added. Noting that the Church has a mission for all in India, he said “the Church cannot and must not just be about herself … and her internal difficulties.” Related reports Catholic bishops convene biennial meet