One of the members of our parish is an Indian and he gave me some great insight into their culture. As a Catholic, he believed that all souls were equal in God’s eyes which in practice leads to a much different society than exists now in India. Since the people’s condition there were a result of Karma, no one would work for change. He said ideas and beliefs do have meaning for how we live our lives.
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Your Indian parishioner is correct.
India DID do away with caste a while back but it had been an INTEGRAL part of India too long and caste survives.
India also has hundreds of millions of "faces" of God (human, animal, objects, creatures, you name it) and that is the antithesis of Christianity...Judaism and Islam too for that matter.
There ARE Catholics there in India and many men are named THOMAS after Jesus' "doubting Thomas" Apostle who went all the way to India in his missionary zeal.
When my husband and I worked for ARAMCO way back, we saw those Indian Catholics there working for Saudi Aramco, a few Thomas-named Catholic men as well.
We have an Indian priest in our diocese. He got a kick out of Americans, who would ask, “How long has your family been Catholic?” He would say, “Since St. Thomas!”