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Pope to maintain silence on attacks against Christians

George Iype in New Delhi

Forced by protests from Hindu groups led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Pope John Paul II during his visit to New Delhi from November 5 to 8 will neither speak publicly about the attacks against Christians in India nor take up the issue with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

But church officials said the Pope will attend an inter-religious meeting on November 7 where he would stress the need for religious tolerance, communal harmony and peaceful coexistence between the various religions in India.

The Pope would proclaim to his hearers that the minority Christian community during its 2,000 year-old existence in India has been serving its fellow citizens with unsurpassed compassion and service.

Representatives of India's major religions -- Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism and Christianity -- are expected to participate in the inter-religious dialogue with the 79-year old patriarch. Church leaders expect anti-Christian violence to figure in the discussion.

Ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party government came to power in 1998, priests have been attacked, missionaries burnt to death and prayer halls razed in states like Gujarat and Orissa. While Christian activists blame the VHP and other pro-Hindu outfits for the attacks, the VHP has argued that forced conversions among tribals is the root cause of the problem.

While a section of the top Indian church leaders want the Roman Catholic pontiff to convey to Vajpayee and President K R Narayanan Vatican's concerns about the increasing atrocities against priests and nuns across the country, some argue that the Pope on his own should not rake up the matter.

"There is no need for the Pope to discuss the attacks against Christians with India's political leadership because his visit to the country is for an entirely different purpose," a senior church official told rediff.com.

The Pope's two-day trip to New Delhi is to unveil his apostolic exhortation called Ecclesia in Asia (Church in Asia) that will officially close last year's Synod for the Asian continent.

"The Pope's visit is the first by a foreign head of state after the new Vajpayee government took over. Therefore, we do not want the papal trip to be marred by any untoward incident," the church official said. He added that the church also wants the Vajpayee government "to restrain" the VHP from carrying out protest marches.

In an effort to keep the Hindutva fire burning, the VHP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have announced that they will organise a chariot march against Catholic atrocities and forced conversion of tribals. The march will begin from Goa and pass through Maharasthra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan before arriving in New Delhi on November 4.

The VHP leaders who are demanding a public declaration from the Pope against forced conversions in India said the protest march deliberately starts from Goa, because it is a Catholic stronghold where during the sixteenth century Portuguese occupation the church used the Inquisition to suppress Hindus and convert their ancestors.

The VHP has also demanded that the Pope use his India visit to apologise for the inquisitions committed in Goa as well as in Kerala and Vasai, by his forerunners.

"We are ready to welcome the Pope without any protest on condition that he condemns religious conversions and accepts that the validity of gods other than the Christian lord of the Bible still holds," the VHP's Praveen Togadia told rediff.com .

He added that only such a declaration from the Pope could ensure better relations and good will among the Hindus and Christians in the country.

Togadia said the Pope should apologise for the Goa Inquisition because through it the church tried to suppress Hindu rituals among religious converts.

But church officials said tendering an apology for the so-called inquisition is not on the Pope's agenda. "The VHP is raking up unnecessary issues for cheap publicity," a church official said, adding that "the Pope holds India in high esteem as a land of culture, peace and harmony."

During his visit to India in 1986, the Pope had declared that he came here as a pilgrim to an ancient land that influenced world culture. He had then noted that India is known as the land that gave birth to religions such as Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism.

Pope John Paul is the second pontiff to visit India. The first was Pope Paul VI, who visited Bombay in 1964.

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