Thank you for this story. Our priest is from southern India and just yesterday spoke of the incredibly warm relations between Hindus and Catholics in his area. I pray for unity among the people of India and protection for all, especially those persecuted and fearing persecution.
The undeclared war that has been brewing in the Indian subcontinent since the aftermath of the Indian Mutiny of 1857 is well known. For the Hindu sees the Christian concept as foreign and a hangnail of colonialism. The widespread attacks have also been fuelled with yet the evil snake of abuse arising. Like Notre Dame, I will not be surprised if a careless match or lighter may cause the Basilica of St.Thomas to some how burn??
This is like the Desi version of the Saint Junipero Serra affair in California.
The Church in our contemporary age is often viewed as intrinsically tied up with and inseperable from evil colonialism, abuses, genocide, and the whole lot (even if the Church was a force for good in those times and places against an otherwise apathetic colonial regime). On the one hand, it is sad that the Church is persecuted unjustly for such tangential connections. On the other hand, this animosity is the penance that the Church must undertake in reparation for past offenses of past generations and past government authorities, on their behalf.
Much like how, at the end of WW2, many European clerics found it difficult to even be around German clerics. Father Gerhard Fitkau's memoir of his time exiled in Siberian gulags ends with an anecdote about how, after being freed from the gulags and shipped back to Germany in cattle cars, he came across a Polish priest at a station they were stopped at. He, a german priest, used his little remaining strength to crawl across the tracks to the Polish priest's feet: "please, Father, I am also a priest - bless me!" to which the Polish priest looked down and said "I am a Polish priest, I cannot offer you anything" and walked away. Dejected, Father Fittkau reflected that this was the penance that the Church would have to endure in reparation for the horrors of the War.
Not that the Portugese in Goa were equivilant to the Nazis, but the same principle applies.
Given that Prime Minister Modi recently addressed the US Congress in order to strengthen ties with this country, I would think that the United States could also apply some pressure to help put an end to the persecution of Christians there.
Interesting story.
Thank you for this story. Our priest is from southern India and just yesterday spoke of the incredibly warm relations between Hindus and Catholics in his area. I pray for unity among the people of India and protection for all, especially those persecuted and fearing persecution.
The undeclared war that has been brewing in the Indian subcontinent since the aftermath of the Indian Mutiny of 1857 is well known. For the Hindu sees the Christian concept as foreign and a hangnail of colonialism. The widespread attacks have also been fuelled with yet the evil snake of abuse arising. Like Notre Dame, I will not be surprised if a careless match or lighter may cause the Basilica of St.Thomas to some how burn??
This is like the Desi version of the Saint Junipero Serra affair in California.
The Church in our contemporary age is often viewed as intrinsically tied up with and inseperable from evil colonialism, abuses, genocide, and the whole lot (even if the Church was a force for good in those times and places against an otherwise apathetic colonial regime). On the one hand, it is sad that the Church is persecuted unjustly for such tangential connections. On the other hand, this animosity is the penance that the Church must undertake in reparation for past offenses of past generations and past government authorities, on their behalf.
Much like how, at the end of WW2, many European clerics found it difficult to even be around German clerics. Father Gerhard Fitkau's memoir of his time exiled in Siberian gulags ends with an anecdote about how, after being freed from the gulags and shipped back to Germany in cattle cars, he came across a Polish priest at a station they were stopped at. He, a german priest, used his little remaining strength to crawl across the tracks to the Polish priest's feet: "please, Father, I am also a priest - bless me!" to which the Polish priest looked down and said "I am a Polish priest, I cannot offer you anything" and walked away. Dejected, Father Fittkau reflected that this was the penance that the Church would have to endure in reparation for the horrors of the War.
Not that the Portugese in Goa were equivilant to the Nazis, but the same principle applies.
Given that Prime Minister Modi recently addressed the US Congress in order to strengthen ties with this country, I would think that the United States could also apply some pressure to help put an end to the persecution of Christians there.