In Pope's remarks, Sangh Parivar sees a challenge...
hindustantimes.com
New Delhi, November 8 (Udayan Namboodiri)
POPE JOHN Paul II's purported remarks on conversion during his three-day tour of New Delhi which ended today have left the Sangh Parivar feeling "challenged" and the Indian Church on the defensive. It is clear that another exchange of rhetoric is in the offing. Speaking to The Hindustan Times, Mr Rajendra Chaddha, all-India joint co-ordinator of Prajna Prabaha, an RSS front, opined that the Pope's statements on raising a "harvest of faith" in Asia in the third millennium of Christianity, posed a serious challenge to all Indian intellectuals. He also called upon the government to recall Mahatma Gandhi's stand on making conversion illegal.
Acharya Giriraj Kishore of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad said the Pope had "misused the hospitality extended to him by the country". Like Mr Chaddha, he too expressed readiness to "accept the challenge". The Sangh Parivar would continue its campaign against "conversions" and demand the Government to take note of the link between missionaries and insurgents in the North-East.
Heads of the Catholic Church in India are back on the defensive after reports of the Pope's statements placed a question mark over the undertones believed concealed in the Synod document's message. Archbishop of New Delhi, Rev Alan de Lastic, clarified that the Pope had not meant conversion in the terms perceived by the Sangh Parivar. "He had made a call to Christians to be better Christians because in our parlance conversion is meant as a change of heart".
He, however, maintained that in his Vigyan Bhavan speech to representatives of all faiths, the pontiff had clearly stated that religious freedom forms the core of human rights and that there should be no obstacles to conversion if one is guided by the conscience. The Pope had also remarked that a higher degree of religious tolerance prevails in India than in most other countries. Holding out the olive branch to the Sangh Parivar he said the Vajpayee Government's secular character was evident in the hospitality shown to the Pope.
The "synthesis" of the Asian Synod document, Ecclesia Asia, released by the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI), talks of the universality of Jesus Christ's message. "Even for those who do not explicitly profess faith in Him (Jesus) as Saviour, salvation comes as a grace ......no nation, no culture is impervious to the appeal of Jesus who speaks from the very heart of the human condition. Jesus is the Good News for the men and women of every time and place in their search for meaning and existence for the truth of their own humanity."
There is no explicit direction anywhere to the Church to go out and seek new followers in the 29-page Apostolic Exhortation that the Pope presented either. He asked the Asian church to pour its heart out in the "colloquium salutis" -- the saving dialogue which reaches out to the followers of other religions. Statements like these, delivered in typically archaic style, are open to all kinds of interpretation, according to Father Dominic Emmanuel, the CBCI spokesperson. "The Pope had recognised that Christianity is a religion springing from Asian soil and outlined the need for its recognition in the continent of its birth. He did not condone conversion. To change from any other religion to Christianity is not actively encouraged -- nor is it easy and overnight," he said.
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