Norbert D'Souza

Who is Norbert D'Souza?

Norbert D'Souza is a railway engineer and trainer from Pune who was president of the All India Catholic Union for four years. The AICU represents almost 16 million Catholics in India, including followers of the Latin Rite, the Syro Malabar Catholics and the Syro Malankara Catholics. He held office from 1996 to 2000, succeeding Peter G. Marbaniang and succeeded by Maria Emilia Menezes.

In September 1992 as vice-president of the AICU western region D'Souza participated in a three-day conference that discussed changes to the Christian Personal Law relating to marriage, divorce and adoption. The current laws did not recognize a divorce granted by a priest, and did not allow Christians to legally adopt for succession purposes. Also, Dalit Christians were not treated as members of scheduled castes, although Sikhs and Buddhists of Dalit origin were. It was agreed to campaign for changes to these laws.

As secretary of the AICU, D'Souza observed that Christians had traditionally been strong supporters of the Congress party, but only because no other party had taken interest in them. He noted that the Hindu nationalist RSS still claimed that Christians were anti-national because they had cooperated with the British.