Seminaries Full in Southern India (despite new anti-conversion law)

Zenit News Agency ^ | April 11, 2006

[NYer]

KOENIGSTEIN, Germany, APRIL 11, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Vocations in India seem to be booming as increasing numbers of young men stepping forward to prepare for the priesthood.

In a recent interview with the international charity Aid to the Church in Need, Father Ignatius Prasad, rector of the Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Chennai (formerly Madras), gave this optimistic assessment of the Church.

The priest explained that his seminary now has 286 students and that -- due to a lack of space -- he had to turn away 23 candidates, who have been forced to continue their training elsewhere.

The seminary is one of four in southern India with a combined total of almost 800 students from 28 dioceses. More than 60 of them are due to be ordained to the priesthood next month.

In Chennai, there were now more than 30 students in each year-group in the seminary's theology section, double the number in the late 1980s, Father Prasad said.

"Vocations are going up; this has been the case for the last five years or so," the rector said. "We find it difficult to admit all the applicants and set a tight deadline for them to get their papers in on time."

Father Prasad revealed that there was growing "political pressure" to limit the growth of the Church with a new anti-conversion law introduced in the state of Tamil Nadu: Preaching in public is forbidden and would-be converts to Christianity now face a barrage of paperwork thrust upon them by government officials.

Retreats, sodalities

The seminary rector said that people were turning to the Church in protest against the new regulations.

"The more pressure they put on people, the more they feel like proclaiming their faith," he said.

The priest went on to explain that lively youth programs were drawing people to the faith and encouraging men to discern a possible vocation to the priesthood. Retreats, sodalities and altar serving had all helped to boost the number of seminarians.

He also praised the work of Aid to the Church in Need, describing how the charity had supported key training for seminary staff, Mass intentions, library books and a generator.

"What we feel is so important," Father Prasad added, "is to help the students to realize what they are learning about is not so much an academic subject but a mystery, something that is very personal and with a strong human dimension to it."

[CarrotAndStick]

Ok. Thanks anyway. It was nice having interacted with you!

[Cronos]

Well, he's from Goa, and India stole Goa by force from Portugal. Why shouldn't he have an allegiance of sympathy to Portugal?

Not really -- Goa was a colony with it's own independence movement, but most Goans didn't care one way or the other as the Portuguese by the 19th century had become pretty powerless colonial owners -- they only retained control because the English had a 6 century old treaty with Portugal and didn't bother about taking over their little colony. When India gained independence, it wanted European colonies out of the Indian continent -- just as the USA's Monroe Doctrine prescribed no foreign involvement in North OR South America.

[Cronos]

Tell that to the widow of the Australian missionary who was burned alive along with his two young sons in an automobile by a group of Hindu fanatics.Tell that to the friends, family and congregation of the Catholic priest recently murdered.

Again, both of you, by generalising, are wrong. Do you have any proof that ALL (or even any more than the fringe fraction of a percentage) Hindus persecute Christians? Or even if there is a large majority that silently support this? No. Most hindus condemned the killing of that Australian missionary, Staines. And the killer was sentenced to death by the Indian secular judicial system. Christians have started schools etc. in India, hence most Hindus consider the actions of extremist groups against Christians as despicable.

Both Raj and C&S's remarks to me seem like reactions to your blanket condemnations of EVERYTHING in their culture, religion, way of life, nation, everything about them. If you have persons who give these kind of blanket condemnations against YOU, you may probably react in the same way.

[Cronos]

I don't begrudge Mexicans flying Mexican flags. I spent time in childhood in Wisconsin with Swedes flying Swedish flags, Germans flying German flags, Norwegians flying Norwegian flags, Swiss flying Swiss flags, etc.

Yes, but the person in question is Indian, by birth and citizenship, showing allegiance to another nation because of a colonial hang-up. Kind of like an American in 1820 flying a Union JAck -- mildly bugging.

[little jeremiah]

Thank you for those excerpts. I saw the title of this thread I think yesterday, and I feared what it would degenerate into, that's why I didn't visit it.

I plan to have the article I've been meditating on and taking notes about very soon. If only more people could appreciate even a small drop of the universal message of the original Vedic religion, the world would be a much better place for all.

[Cronos]

and the Hindus took the modern use of zero from Alexander's Greek astronomers, who were already then using it.

uh, actually it went the other way around. Greek mathematicians were more interested in geometry and theories, Indians were the more practical mathematicians with interests in algebra and arithmatic.

[Cronos]

A Hindu employee will kiss his boss's Muslim/Christian ass with extreme secularism as long as it helps him pay the bills and put his kids through school.

Heh-heh. I guess the same would be true for employees of all religions in India -- it's got the marvellous distinction of being a country that isn't secular in the western sense (denying all religions), rather one where you can freely practise whatever you want to as long as you don't stomp on someone else's FACE. So, festivals of all religions are celebrated by all Indians and most Indian muslims aren't as loony as the ones in Pakiland.

Having said that, the Americans on this thread fail to take into account is the amount of emotional baggage most Indians still carry consciously or subconsciously. History books still remind people how emperor Auranzeb and other Islamic raiders from the west, destroyed temples and killed uncountable hindus

Quite correct -- in most of India, the Muslim is shunned. Christians are treated as exotica in some places and as friendly souls in other, more urban surroundings.

However, I do reiterate that Christian missionaries who go about telling Hindus they worship demons are damaging Christianity itself. No one's going to listen to them after they say that, so they shoot themselves in the foot. Most Hindus, even Raj here, would not mind listening to Christian texts, but many wouldn't really care one way or the other if they were Christian or Hindu. Finally, the choice falls on the individual. Christianity IS a religion of choice and of learning.

[dangus]

I do appreciate the passages you have post, and your work in highlighting certain passages (while noting there does seem to be a hand towards syncretism in the translation).

But for the record, again, I will say to you, you do not need to impress me of the nature of Indians, if that is what you are attempting; I was won over for many many years.

The passages quoted in the Song of Bhagavan is quite remarkable. Early Christians (although some Protestant sects deny this and try to make all pre-Christian thoughts out to be purely demonic) believed that all the nations of the earth had impulses of God expressed within them. Plato, for instance was called "Prophet to the Gentiles" (bearing in mind that the Gentiles referred to the Hellenic culture). The ancient Christian issue with non-Christian religions is not that there is no beauty, wisdom, or grace to be found within, but that there is a lack of full awareness of Christ, and a taint of evil which contradicts the wise and beautiful impulses.

And while you'd never know it from the self-styled "traditionalist" Catholics on this site, the Catholic Church has long maintained that those who have not known Christ in name, but having discerned him in creation and yearned for him and his Way of Love can be granted the eternal bliss of the beatific vision. The charity of Christianization is in providing souls with the tools to preserve and grow that grace.

[Cronos]

NYer -- I do recognise and respect your deep knowledge about Christianity, but I also note a lack of knowledge about hinduism: in the first place, it's not really a religion in the sense that you and I from a monotheistic, organised religion would understand it. Hinduism has no central tenets of beliefs, no commandments, no generally recognised Holy Books (most will claim the Gita is their Bible, but some don't agree to that), no central leadership or anything. It's pretty much like India itself: organised chaos (and I mean it in the nicest sense!)

Someone best described it as a meta-religion: an umbrella term for religions as diverse as Thuggees to the iconoclasmic arya Samaj. By some definitions, even if Hindu worships only at a Church, he's a Hindu, and a Christian in India of Indian descent, would be a Hindu -- yes it seems to include pure native aspects as well. So Hinduism is a meta-religion, is a culture, is a nationality. It's so ingrained in Indian pysche that even Muslims and Christians display Hindu culture (for instance, the fatalistic aspect).

I'll end on this note -- remember that the derivation of the very word India is from Hindustan, the land of the Hindus. The word Hindu is the Persian term for all persons who lived on or east of the Indus river.

[dangus]

I am a Christian, a Catholic, and I believe one who's posts you have seen many times. I hope that what you have read from me on other subjects will give me some credibility as I say this: On behalf of myself and many Hindu friends, I do implore you to realize that these men are not typical. You could get a pretty ugly perception of Christians if you venture into certain regions of this site, as well.

Hinduism is a pagan religion, with, I believe, serious flaws. Islam, however, is, to this day, the only religion that is founded on anti-Christian premises.

[Cronos]

How many christian missionaries have been killed in India over the last 50 years ? 1 million ? 10 million ? Nope. 10 at best. Just ten. 10 christian priests killed over the last 50 years. How many such murders have you heard of ? One. And yet you think it reflects a tendency in hindu culture 'to murder priests , pastors and christian leader'.

Quite correct -- you're talking a few instances (that are condemned by Hindus) and blowing it up into a case of state persecution. That's wrong and a sever case of generalisin. Compare India to what happens in Pakistan and you can delineate the difference between persecution and atrocities committed by fringe groups

[dangus]

Well, Lion and I were talking about religion in America. In Russia, a state-controlled religion, subservient to anti-true-Christian communists for 70 years*, is desperately trying to use fake calls to nationalism as a pretext for clinging to power. I agree it is despicable.


[* This is not aimed at the religion of Russian-Orthodox Christianity, but to its corruptors who brutally suppressed the true Christians of Russian Orthodoxy, and who now claim to be its preservers.]

[CarrotAndStick]

I agree with you mostly, Dangus, and I've also mentioned that large portions of Chutch audience in India comprise of Hindus (devout Hindus at that). This is one unique thing about Christianity and Hinduism/Sikhism in India. This is not reflected in Hindu-Islam relations or even Islam-Christian relations. Quite a number of Indian Christians on this forum, and on this very post, can attest to that.

There are exceptions, though, in Sufi Islamic places- Sufi Islam being a toned-down, Hinduism-influenced version of Islam, which was primely responsible for most of the Islamic conversions in India, and the subsequent birth of the Sikh faith.

[CarrotAndStick]

Oops, Chutch = Church. Lord, forgive me! :)

[CarrotAndStick]

[* This is not aimed at the religion of Russian-Orthodox Christianity, but to its corruptors who brutally suppressed the true Christians of Russian Orthodoxy, and who now claim to be its preservers.]

Good that you mentioned it. Otherwise this thread would have become a spite-all hate-fest in no time, like the one I mentioned earlier. ;^)

[sniper22]

"Hinduism is a pagan religion, with, I believe, serious flaws."

And yet hinduism is superior to christianity or islam or any other religion. I love my pagan religion , thank you very much. Proud to be a pagan. My hindu gods stronger than your chrsitian god.My daddy will beat the crap out of your daddy.

[sniper22]

Save all the religion stuff - could anybody tell this pagan hindu who was chucked out of American Idol this week ? Its shown in India on 20-hour delayed basis.....I would hate it if the gray haired dude who looks like a grandfather is voted out.

[Conservative til I die]

On behalf of myself and many Hindu friends, I do implore you to realize that these men are not typical.

Well, let's hope not. But seriously, fools like these do their religion and their country no favors.

Even though I'm a worldly enough guy and know enough Indian people and enough about Hinduism (and no, I am not equating India with Hinduism), I've never had exposure to any kind of interreligious debate with Hindus.

I'm not impressed by what I have seen.

[Cronos]

Indian christians enjoy full freedom to follow their faith in India and are are as Indian as any hindu or sikh.

quite correct -- there are many Indian Christians who would find the allegiance of some to Western powers abhorrent.

[sniper22]

Never mind.... I just found out Bucky is out.