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VATICAN, September 12, 2004: (HPI note: This report is from the Vatican’s official news agency, Zenit.) The arrest of a member of the nationalist Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party for the Aug. 28 murder of a priest hasn’t satisfied Church officials who suspect a cover-up. Father Job Chittilappilly, who for 45 years carried out his pastoral work in the Catholic community of the Syro-Malabar rite, was found dead in the residence of Our Lady of Grace Parish, in the Diocese of Trichur, in the state of Kerala. The priest had been praying the rosary before Mass when he was stabbed to death. “The first time a priest is killed in cold blood in Kerala,” is how Archbishop Jacob Thoomkuzhy of Trichur described it. Nothing was touched or taken from Father Chittilappilly’s residence. The Missionary Service News Agency reported Friday that the man arrested in the case, Reghu Kamar, 25, has apparently confessed to the crime. Preliminary investigations indicate that Kamar murdered the priest because he feared Father Chittilappilly would convert Hindus to Christianity. The suspect also wanted to revive a Hindu temple, next to Our Lady of Grace in Thuruthiparambu, which has been closed for some 20 years. It is alleged that the temple priest was killed some 25 years ago. Based on a local belief, the temple could be revived only by offering the blood of another priest. On learning the news of the arrest of Kamar, the parish’s faithful surrounded the police for five hours, shouting slogans and accusing them of “attempting to cover up a conspiracy behind the crime and minimizing the situation by arresting only one individual.” The Archdiocese of Trichur organized a protest rally Saturday against Father Chittilappilly’s murder and the authorities’ indifference.

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