Marching with the Marginalised

Book excerpt: About the Book: Pope Benedict XVI recently stated: “The Church must of course ask if she does enough for social justice... It is a question of conscience which we must always pose ourselves.... What must the Church do? What can she not do? What must she not do?” This book attempts to explore the relevant answers to those pertinent questions applying the Values of the Kingdom of God and Principles of the Social Doctrine of the Church to our context and exploring from the perspective of the Marginalised. This volume belongs to the Series on the People’s Theology brought out by the authour articulating the theological reflections emerging from the life struggles and experiential wisdom of the Marginalised. The authour presents the insights in the book as suggestions and proposals for making our mission more relevant and effective by responding to the signs of the times and places through focusing on human rights and justice. This book invites us to pro-actively join the struggles of the Oppressed for liberation and inter-actively march with the Marginalised for realizing the “Just Peace” of the Divine Reign. About the Author: Anthoniraj Thumma, a Catholic Priest from the Diocese of Nellore, secured Master degrees in Sociology as well as Systematic Theology, and Doctorate in Religious Studies from the University of Madras. Besides his regular pastoral ministry, he served as the Director of Social Service and Youth Work and worked with the human rights groups and people’s movements. After his higher studies and research, he became a Professor of Systematic Theology and Missiology at St John’s Regional Seminary, Hyderabad. Presently, he is a Guest Professor in Contextual Theology, Regional Director of the Commission for Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue, Executive Secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Federation of Churches (APFC), and Deputy Secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Bishops’ Council (APBC). He is an Executive Member of the Indian Theological Association (ITA) and Asian Coordinator of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT). He has authored and edited many books in English and Telugu (see the last pages of this book for the list). His Series of books on the People’s Theology is a valuable contribution to Contextual Theology which is much appreciated.