Selvister Ponnumuthan
Selvister Ponnumuthan (born August 10, 1956 in Viraly-Utchakkada ) is bishop of the Punalur diocese .
biography
Selvister Ponnumuthan comes from the district of Thiruvananthapuram in the extreme south of the Indian state of Kerala . He was born as the fourth son of the Catholic couple Ponnumuthan Nadar and Thankamma. The father's family name indicates the descent from the Tamil Nadu and Kerala ethnic group of the Nadar.
Ponnumuthan visited in 1975, the St. Joseph's Pontifical Seminary in Aluva (formerly Alwaye) and received on 19 December 1981 as a deacon of the Archdiocese of Trivandrum , by the local bishop Jacob Acharuparambil , the ordination . He then did his doctorate at the Gregoriana in Rome . On June 14, 1996, he moved to the diocese of Neyyattinkara, which was newly separated from the Archdiocese of Trivandrum, and was incardinated here . From that year he worked as a teacher at St. Joseph's Pontifical Seminary Aluva, was appointed vice rector in 1998 and rector in 2008.
Pope Benedict XVI appointed Selvister Ponnumuthan on May 8, 2009 as Bishop of Punalur in Kerala. The Archbishop of Trivandrum , Maria Callist Soosa Pakiam , donated him episcopal ordination on June 28 of the same year ; Co- consecrators were Joseph Kariyil , Bishop of Cochin , and Vincent Samuel , Bishop of Neyyattinkara .
Special
Bishop Ponnumuthan is a committed and nationally known lawyer in India for the rights of the so-called Dalits ( untouchables ) and similarly underprivileged castes . In this context he heads a special commission of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Kerala. The majority of his diocesans are Dalits. If they convert from Hinduism to Christianity or Islam, they officially - but not in everyday life - lose their caste membership and thus all state support if the social status remains the same, which is also a grievance denounced by Bishop Ponnumuthan.
In addition, the bishop has a strong botanical interest and he collects a wide variety of plants in the garden of his bishop's house. A working group from the University of Kerala identified or described them and, with Ponnumuthan's support, published the book Ortus Planta, Garden Plants at Bishop's House, Punalur in 2011 . The garden is freely accessible and is often the goal of school classes.
Web links
- Entry on Selvister Ponnumuthan on catholic-hierarchy.org
- Biographical website for Bishop Selvister Ponnumuthan (English)
- General viewable Facebook page of the bishop, with photos that he shared with Popes Francis and Benedict XVI. demonstrate
- German-language website about a visit by Bishop Selvister Ponnumuthan on a pilgrimage in the Diocese of Speyer, on May 1st, 2013
Individual evidence
- ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: German website on the Dalit commitment of Bishop Selvister Ponnumuthan
- ^ Website of a parish in the diocese of Punalur with a short biography of the bishop and a description of the diocese
- ↑ Article in Indian Express newspaper , August 15, 2011
- ↑ Website of the All Saints College Trivandrum, Department of Botany (open sub-item "Book published") ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Joseph Kariyil |
Bishop of Punalur since 2009 |
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| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ponnumuthan, Selvister |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Indian clergyman, Bishop of Punalur |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 10, 1956 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Viraly-Utchakkada |