Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
New Delhi (Agenzia Fides) - A lay Catholic group has asked the government to present a white paper on conversion data and violence against religious minorities. In fact various lay associations and movements support the position taken by the Catholic Bishops of India who recently confirmed their commitment to fight for freedom of conscience and religion in the country.
Lay Catholics say it is necessary to publish data and testimony on religious conversions in recent years and also on episodes of religious intolerance and attacks on religious minorities by Hindu extremist groups. They say the white paper would be a basis for serious reflection on freedom of conscience and the anti-conversion laws already in force in various states of the Indian Federation and being considered by other states.
“Atrocities against minorities are a known and published fact. Not a single day goes by without reporting about such atrocities on the Christian community in different parts of the country” said the statement issued by Bombay Catholic Sabha.
“We want government to publish a white paper on the atrocities committed on the Minorities in the last decade and what action has been taken against the perpetrators of crimes against humanity and how many have been punished”.
Bombay Catholic Sabha also recalls the false accusations made by Hindu groups against Christians for proselytising: “The census figures show a decline in the Christian population in India, it said asking the ruling government of publish a white paper “as to how many have been converted in the last decades. The truth of these findings will nail the lies that have been told recently”.
The question of religious freedom has been brought to the fore in the Catholic community in India especially since Pope Benedict XVI’s address to the new Indian Ambassador to the Holy See Mr Amitava Tripathi and an intervention by the former archbishop of Bombay Cardinal Ivan Dias, newly appointed Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples. (Agenzia Fides 30/5/2006 righe 25 parole 254)
