The Annual Meeting of Agra Regional Bishops’ Coference (ARBC), Agra Regional Priests’ Council (ARPC) and Agra Regional CRI was held in Nav Sadhana, Varanasi from Nov. 16 to 18, 2011 to reflect on the theme: OUR RESPONSE TO CORRUPTION IN THE SOCIETY AND CHURCH. The resource person and moderator was Rev.Fr. Cedric Prakash, Director of Prashant, A Centre for Human Rights, Justice and Peace, Ahmedabad, Gujarat. It was attended by 12 Bishops, 25 Priests of ARPC and 52 members of ARCRI.
Rev. Fr. Cedric has first and foremost thrown light on the existence of corruption in varied ways in micro and macro scale. He shared his life experience of hardship and difficulties to overcome this mal practice. His constant reply was: How would Jesus respond to this situation? If we are his followers and disciples, we need to continue to respond in a similar way. Later all were divided into 10 groups to create awareness and to reflect collectively on corruption. Report was shared in the common session and at the end each diocese prepared the action plan with deadline to be executed. All were happy about the reflection and exercise. They are hopeful of mitigating the exercises of corruption in a personal and collective way according to their capacity and ability.
