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Indian Church Leaders Respond to Anti-Christian Violence and “Forced Conversion Laws”

Part IV of LifeSiteNews Special Reports from India

By Steve Jalsevac

COCHIN, Kerala, India, June 20, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In some parts of India during the past few years there has been growing violence against Christians. A small number of Hindu fundamentalists, sometimes in league with sympathetic police, have physically harassed, beaten, raped and even murdered Christians.  Churches and homes have been burned.

Just before this past Christmas, three Catholics, including a priest, were beaten unconscious by extremists in the northern state of Rajasthan. Later, on January 29, Bishop Thomas Dabre of Vasai and three of his priests were attacked by a large mob with stones while opening a hostel for tribal children. In Goa this past March 18, a priest was murdered under circumstances that also appeared to be the work of Hindu extremists.

Related to this development is the ongoing media and political controversy of "forced conversion" laws, in place in five Indian states so far and now being proposed in others.

This past May 18 Pope Benedict welcomed India's new ambassador, Amitava Tripathi, to the Holy See. During the Pope’s speech, which Mumbia’s Cardinal Ivan Dias says was “filled with appreciation of and praises for the Indian nation”, the Pope also commented on disturbing signs of "religious intolerance” in India. The Pope referred to the laws against “forced conversions”. He said, "reprehensible" attempts to legislate "clearly discriminatory restrictions" of religious freedom are against the Indian Constitution and the ideals of India's founding fathers.

There has been strong negative response to the Pope’s comments by some politicians and most Indian media. India's media are said to be largely under the control of high caste Hindu elites who are generally critical of Christianity and supportive of India's population reduction and related abortion and sterilization programs. During the recent three weeks that LifeSiteNews was in India the forced conversions issue was still being covered in most Kerala newspapers.

An editorial titled “Papal  Bull”, in one paper criticized the Pope for getting his facts all wrong and for lording it over India. Another, in the New Indian Express on May 31, accused the previous Pope John Paul II of proclaiming that “Asia was ripe for the harvesting of souls – read heathens- for Christ” and contemptuously referred to Catholic and other missionaries as “soul harvesters." Bizarre charges against the Church were seen in letters to the editors in different papers.

The archbishop of Mumbai (formerly Bombay), Cardinal Ivan Dias, responded to recent criticisms of the Church in a formal statement. He wrote “conversions… should never be induced by force, fraud or allurement: the Catholic Church considers all such conversions as invalid. All allegations made in this regard in the past have proved to be utterly false.”

The Cardinal went on to note that whereas the “Christians in India number only 2.3% of the total population: of these 1.8% belong to the Catholic Church”, they “cater to 20% of all the primary education in the country, 10% of the literacy and community health care programmes, 25% of the care of the orphans and widows, and 30% of the care of the handicapped, lepers and AIDS patients.” He added that “The vast majority of those who avail themselves of these institutions belong to faiths other than Christian.”

In the second part of our May 30 interview with Syro Malabar Cardinal Varkey, LifeSiteNews discussed the forced conversions issue with the Cardinal of the large and influential eastern rite branch of the Catholic Church in India.

Cardinal Varkey related to LifeSiteNews what he believes are the real, unstated purposes of the anti-conversion laws which are reasonable laws at face value and have some justification. He indicated a major intent of the drafters, however, is linked to the continued exploitation of India’s downtrodden low caste, “untouchable” population. However, the Cardinal doubts that the current attacks against Christians will become a long term, serious problem. That is because, in his opinion, the Hindu extremists are a small elite, unrepresentative of the vast majority of Hindus and other Indians who have a strong tradition of respect for all religious beliefs.

** See the LifeSiteNews interview with Cardinal Varkey:
Indian Cardinal Says Forced Conversion Laws Really About Stopping All Conversions
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jun/06062012.html

See previous articles in this series of reports from India:

Part I
Christians in India facing Major Decline Because of Low Birthrate
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jun/060612a.html

Part II
Priest Says Kerala Catholics Use “Whatever Savage Method They Can” to Limit Children
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jun/06061303.html

Part III
Kerala Cardinal Says "Loose Catholic Doctrine" From West Has Influenced Indian Catholics to Accept Contraception
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jun/06061507.html

LifeSiteNews Interview With Cardinal Varkey in Cochin, India
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jun/060615a.html
(includes photos)

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