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."

[Cronos]

Or 72 Vegans.

[Upbeat]

I surrender. I can't top that one.

[sukhoi-30mki]

A little bit of reality about Goa-it's been a Hindu majority state long before India annexed it & the folks who supposedly had loyalties to Portugal(anglo-Indians) consisted a neglible chunk of the population.Often they are confused with the larger westernised Marathi ,Konkani & Mangalorean Christian catholics.

[sukhoi-30mki]

Umm Tuesdays have some significance for hindus where I live in Del.I think it's got something to do with Hanuman & I usually find non-veg serving restaurants closed on that day.

[CarrotAndStick]

Also a day for female deities. This draws large Hindu crowds who pay reverence to Mother Mary.

[dangus]

>> The PORTUGUESE were interested in spreading the word of God. <<

I don't know about that. I'm not sure about Portuguese intents in the 19th century, but in the 16th century, the Protuguese rulers were pretty much the pariahs of the "Catholic" world, for being godless. OTOH, they certainly seemed to have converted more than the British did.

[dangus]

Don't throw me into this! I have said over and over and over again how much I admire the Indian culture. I just got into this to defend a guy I saw savagely attacked on this web site.

[dangus]

Please see, for instance, post #210.

[dangus]

>> Chutch = Church. Lord, forgive me! :) <<

For What? For writing with Tom Keane's NJ accent?

"Na Juhzzie and you, Puhhfect tigethuh" :^D

[CarrotAndStick]

With the Portuguese, it was a convert-or-cie affair. The Goa Inquisition.

The Goa Inquisition was the office of the Inquisition acting in the Indian city of Goa and the rest of the Portuguese empire in Asia. Established in 1560, it was aimed primarily at Hindus and wayward new converts and by the time it was suppressed in 1774, the inquisition had had thousands of people executed and tortured.

Christian missionary St. Francis Xavier, in a 1545 letter to John III, requested for an Inquisition to be installed in Goa. However, it was not installed until after eight years of Francis Xavier's death in 1552.

The first inquisitors, Aleixo Dias Falcão and Francisco Marques, established themselves in what was formerly the sultan of Goa's palace, forcing the Portuguese viceroy to relocate to a smaller residence. The inquisitor's first act was forbidding Hindus from practising their faith through fear of death. Sephardic Jews, many of whom had fled the Iberian Peninsula to escape the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition to begin with, and living in Goa were also persecuted.

In 1599 under Aleixo de Menezes the Synod of Diamper converted the Saint Thomas Christians with the Roman Catholic Church. Unfortunately, the synod enforced severe restrictions on their faith and practice using Syriac/Aramaic. Those Kerala Nasrani who resisted the conversion to Latin rite faced persecution.

A large number of restrictive religious laws were enacted, including the banning of Hindu musical instruments, dhoti, betel leaves and cholis. Many Hindu temples were converted or destroyed, and Christian churches built in their place, often from the materials of the temples they replaced. Throughout this period several important Hindu texts were burned to saturate the area with Christian religious texts. Most notably, the Kama Sutra increased in infamy with its lewd alternatives to the endorsed Missionary position.

The condemned Hindus were publicly burned at the stake in the square outside the Sé Cathedral in batches during ceremonies known as auto da fé (Portuguese: act of faith). Those who confessed to their accused heresy would be strangled prior to the burning.

Though officially repressed in 1774, the last vestiges of the Goa Inquisition were not finally swept away until the British occupied the city in 1812.


References
Streatfeidl-James, Douglas and Thomas, Bryn. Lonely Planet - Goa. Lonely Planet Publications, 1998.
Henry James Coleridge, ed. The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier. 2d Ed., 2 Vols. London: Burns & Oates, 1890.

[CarrotAndStick]

convert-or-cie die affair.

"Na Juhzzie and you, Puhhfect tigethuh"

(Repeating to self):Gotta stop typing with elbow resting on a pillow...Gotta stop typing with elbow resting on a pillow...Gotta stop typing with elbow resting on a pillow...Gotta stop typing with elbow resting on a pillow...Gotta stop typing with elbow resting on a pillow.

:^)

[Conservative til I die]

With your 'my relgion superior to yours attitude' , you will lose a lot of friends.

Hmmph. I don't see where I told you my religion is better than yours. I certainly do believe that, but I didn't say that to you.

With your sort of presumptupousness, maybe it's no wonder if you're losing friends whenever you talk about religion.

[dangus]

Thanks Cronos; I'd like to say one thing to all the participants of this debate:

There are several participants who insist on turning everything into "Hindus are all wonderful, and Christians are all evil" or "Christians are all wonderful, and Hindus are all evil."

Anybody who has ever read my posts knows I'm no syncretist. In fact, next to Islam, Western syncretism is one of the religious impulses I respect the least. (There are syncretic aspects of Hindu, but that actually stems from a paticular religious belief, unlike Western syncretism which is essentially a lazy agnosticism; I pick out Islam because it is the one religion which was created with an explicitly anti-Christian and explicitly violent purpose.)

I think it is pretty ridiculous to say "Christians are all..." or "Hindus are all..." Both religions are very diverse, and both can be represented by people merely on the basis of cultural identification. (The person who said many Hindus [and I would add many Christians] would kiss the secular ass of anyone who help them get food on the table, that person, was very correct.) Good and evil souls exist within both religions. There are faithful members of both religions, and people who simply use it as a tool.

My interest in this is purely a response to some savage and disgusting attacks I read, early on this thread, which disgraced Free Republic. One poster expressed that he has experienced anti-Christian discrimination in India. I know for a fact that Christians are seen in some parts of India as subverting the caste system, and therefore, they are very much disliked by those who benefit from the caste system at the expense of the "untouchables."

The existence of untouchables is a horrible shame on the religion of Hinduism. My own religion, Catholicism, has its own horrible shames. Pop culture in America has wildly exaggerated some of these: the inquisition, for instance, gets blamed for all the abuses that it was created to end; and the Crusades saved Western Civilization by resisting a deadly aggressor which is characterized as hapless nice guys. But some are undeniable, and much more relevant, such as the pedophilia scandals. The inquisition was pretty damned ugly, especially by modern standards. "Saving" the Spanish Jews by expelling them before the crowds could kill them is hardly a just way of dealing with the problem, and those crowds were Catholic, also. And while the armies which sacked Constantinople had been excommunicated for their belicose actions, no-one can deny that there was great fault with Catholic leaders for having contributed to those circumstances.

Further, I recognize that the phenomenon of the untouchables and the caste system is endorsed only by certain minority sects of Hinduism. The fact that it benefits the wealthy and the powerful makes it easy to understand as a corruption of Hinduism.

I find that there are serious flaws with Hinduism (that should be obvious by the fact that I have not become Hindu): A religion which finds everything sacred finds nothing particularly sacred, and is inherently vulnerable to denigrating beliefs, such as the worship of cattle above people and the existence of a caste system.

I find very serious flaws with Protestantism, too. And I have no doubt that Protestants will have no trouble pointing out what they believe are serious flaws with Catholicism, even in its ideal state. And frankly, as a Christian, I find most Hindus easier to get along with and work productively with than just about any culture.

These facts are irrelevant to the facets of the debate I have entered.

What is relevant is that coerced religious identification is disgusting. It is counter-productive to the group that practices it.

Some of the statements I have read on this thread are disgusting.

Everyone is entitled to their beliefs. And everyone is entitled to believe that there are flaws in everyone else's beliefs. And everyone should recognize that if they think their beliefs are perfect, they are really screwed up. To not disagree with anyone is to be mindless and weak. What is important is how we conduct ourselves and treat others in the presence of such disagreements.

[dangus]

A flag goes up when the principle source of a Wikipedia article is a travelogue series whose only other publication is about Siberia...

...but I found out this much:

That an inquisition occured is very plain. But a true inquisition SHOULD be a strictly internal affair, aimed at routing out heretics, not apostates or non-Christians. As noted recently on this thread by me, the term "inquisition" has been applied to the horrific actions that were exactly what the real inquisition was founded to put an end to.

Essentially, an inquisition is about "brand-name protection": We don't care what you believe in, but just don't call it Christianity. We're the Christian church, and you ain't us. The result of what St. Francis Xavier had called for was a reunification of the Syro-Malabarese church with the Catholic church.

What was the nature of the Goa inquisition? Plainly it was a true inquisition in that it was established by Rome. Did it commit horrible atrocities? Did it become a tool of the Portuguese royalty, permitting the Portuguese Royalty to commit horrible atrocities? Did it oppose horrible atrocities by the Portguese royalty? Did anyone actually commit horrible atrocities in the first place?

Unfortunately, the internet appears insufficient in addressig these questions.

That Rome was not pleased with later developments out of the office of the Goa inquisition is very plain. The Portuguese who ran Goa were essentially considered atheists by Rome, and St. Francis Xavier himself left Goa years before the arrival of the inquisition because he found the Goan Portuguese to be wholly godless. At first, the Inquisition was staffed with people from Rome and Rome was quite pleased. In the end, Rome declared the Portuguese unfit for missionary activity, and sent non-Portuguese in to fix the mess.

Apparently what happened in Goa is very debated within India. The Sangh Parivar (a group) in 1998-1999 launched a series of violent attacks against Christian communities, justifying themselved with alleged atrocities during Portuguese rule. Official government reports concluded that this was a manufactured issue, designed to create an enemy for Parivar's nationalist-socialist ideology. (The West has a famous acronym for nationalist-socialist, taken from German: NaZi.) And the Parivar, who was cited as a major source by much of what I *could* find on the web, was commonly accused of instigating, aiding, and abetting the anti-Christian terrorism which did occur in Goa.

This does not mean that there were not atrocities during Portuguese rule. Unfortunately, it does mean that given the dearth of information about it on the internet, it's impossible to know how fair or accurate the information available on the web is. Minor authors from unesteemed sources (A Siberian travelogue?) simply are unreliable; given a dearth of information, Wikipedia will publish anything; and although slander related to the Inquisition is foundational to American Protestantism, at least in the case of Goa, the mainline Protestants sided with the Catholics, while condemning derogatory missionary tactics by rogue, unaffiliated Christian groups. On the other hand, in the case of Goa, it was actually in their self-interest to side with the Catholics.

[CarrotAndStick]

Although the post I placed was from Wiki, I did take care to add in the citation for the article below it.

Streatfeidl-James, Douglas and Thomas, Bryn. Lonely Planet - Goa. Lonely Planet Publications, 1998.

Henry James Coleridge, ed. The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier. 2d Ed., 2 Vols. London: Burns & Oates, 1890.

I was of the opinion the two citations above are pretty reliable. But you also have a point. Also note that the second citation dates back to 1890. I doubt the 'Parivar' existed back then.

Anyway, I will be searching for the title on the British Library catalogue, and if I find anything, I'll ping you to it.

[CarrotAndStick]

Just found this:

Burns & Oates is a British publishing house which now exists as an imprint of Continuum. It was founded by James Burns in 1835, originally as a bookseller. Burns was of Presbyterian background and he gained a reputation as a High Church publisher, producing works by the Tractarians.

In 1847 his business was put in jeopardy when he converted to Roman Catholicism, but the firm was fortunate to receive the support of John Henry Newman chose the firm to publish many of his works. There is a story that Newman's novel Loss and Gain was written specifically to assist Burns.

After a while trading as Burns, James Burns took a partner, renaming the company Burns & Lambert. In 1866 they were joined by a younger man, William Wilfred Oates, making the company Burns, Lambert & Oates and later Burns & Oates. Oates was another Catholic convert, and had previously co-founded the publishing house of Austin & Oate,s based in Bristol. Burns & Oates passed to his son Wilfred Oates, whose sister Mother Mary Salome became one of the firm’s most successful authors.

In the USA the company's agent was The Catholic Publications Society of New York.


Bibliography
Wilfred Wilberforce, The House of Burns and Oates, London: Burns and Oates, 1908

Early Chapters in the History of Burns and Oates, No Location: Privately Printed, 1949

[CarrotAndStick]

Found this Jewish site, via www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org

http://www.saudades.org/memoirsofgoa.html


Apparently, the literature here makes the 'Parivar' version tame in comparison.

And I will admit this site could be biased.

[CarrotAndStick]

The Inquisition

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Inquisition.html

---

The Inquisition was a Roman Catholic tribunal for discovery and punishment of heresy, which was marked by the severity of questioning and punishment and lack of rights afforded to the accused.

While many people associate the Inquisition with Spain and Portugal, it was actually instituted by Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) in Rome. A later pope, Pope Gregory IX established the Inquisition, in 1233, to combat the heresy of the Abilgenses, a religious sect in France. By 1255, the Inquisition was in full gear throughout Central and Western Europe; although it was never instituted in England or Scandinavia.

Initially a tribunal would open at a location and an edict of grace would be published calling upon those who are conscious of heresy to confess; after a period of grace, the tribunal officers could make accusations. Those accused of heresy were sentenced at an auto-da-fe, Act of Faith. Clergyman would sit at the proceedings and would deliver the punishments. Punishments included confinement to dungeons, physical abuse and torture. Those who reconciled with the church were still punished and many had their property confiscated, as well as were banished from public life. Those who never confessed were burned at the stake without strangulation; those who did confess were strangled first. During the 16th and 17th centuries, attendance at auto da-fe’ reached as high as the attendance at bullfights.

In the beginning, the Inquisition dealt only with Christian heretics and did not interfere with the affairs of Jews. However, disputes about Maimonides’ books (which addressed the synthesis of Judaism and other cultures) provided a pretext for harassing Jews and, in 1242, the Inquisition condemned the Talmud and burned thousands of volumes. In 1288, the first mass burning of Jews on the stake took place in France.

In 1481 the Inquisition started in Spain and ultimately surpassed the medieval Inquisition, in both scope and intensity. Conversos (Secret Jews) and New Christians were targeted because of their close relations to the Jewish community, many of whom were Jews in all but their name. Fear of Jewish influence led Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand to write a petition to the Pope asking permission to start an Inquisition in Spain. In 1483 Tomas de Torquemada became the inquisitor-general for most of Spain, he set tribunals in many cities. Also heading the Inquisition in Spain were two Dominican monks, Miguel de Morillo and Juan de San Martin.

First, they arrested Conversos and notable figures in Seville; in Seville more than 700 Conversos were burned at the stake and 5,000 repented. Tribunals were also opened in Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia. An Inquisition Tribunal was set up in Ciudad Real, where 100 Conversos were condemned, and it was moved to Toledo in 1485. Between 1486-1492, 25 auto-da-fes were held in Toledo, 467 people were burned at the stake and others were imprisoned. The Inquisition finally made its way to Barcelona, where it was resisted at first because of the important place of Spanish Conversos in the economy and society.

More than 13,000 Conversos were put on trial during the first 12 years of the Spanish Inquisition. Hoping to eliminate ties between the Jewish community and Conversos, the Jews of Spain were expelled in 1492..

The next phase of the Inquisition began around 1531, when Pope Leo X extended the Inquisition to Portugal. Thousands of Jews came to Portugal after the 1492 expulsion. A Spanish style Inquisition was constituted and tribunals were set up in Lisbon and other cities. Among the Jews who died at the hands of the Inquisition were well-known figures of the period such as Isaac de Castro Tartas, Antonio Serrao de Castro and Antonio Jose da Silva. The Inquisition never stopped in Spain and continued until the late 18th century.

By the second half of the 18th century, the Inquisition abated, due to the spread of enlightened ideas and lack of resources. The last auto-da-fe in Portugal took place on October 27, 1765. Not until 1808, during the brief reign of Joseph Bonaparte, was the Inquisition abolished in Spain. An estimated 31,912 heretics were burned at the stake, 17,659 were burned in effigy and 291,450 made reconciliations in the Spanish Inquisition. In Portugal, about 40,000 cases were tried, although only 1,800 were burned, the rest made penance.

The Inquisition was not limited to Europe; it also spread to Spanish and Portugese colonies in the New World and Asia. Many Jews and Conversos fled from Portugal and Spain to the New World seeking greater security and economic opportunities. Branches of the Portugese Inquisition were set up in Goa and Brazil. Spanish tribunals and auto-da-fes were set up in Mexico, the Philippine Islands, Guatemala, Peru, New Granada and the Canary Islands. By the late 18th century, most of these were dissolved.

---

Sources: "Inquisition." Encyclopedia Judaica.LINK
"The Spanish Inquisition Gates to Jewish Heritage". LINK
The Sephardic Jews in PortugalLINK

[dangus]

I would definitely say the second source would certainly not be biased against Catholicism! But the first source seems to be the primary source; consider, for instance, how the article deals with St. Francis Xavier: one would get the idea he was calling for Jihad against the Hindus, when really what he was trying to do was establish what issues might complicate a return of the Malabarese to full communion with the Catholic Church!!!

It's "Lonely Planet" which I believe is the dominant source, and the one which provides for the basic tone of the article... Turns out that Lonely Planet was a BBC (ugh!) TV series; although Streatfeidl's only other book was Siberia, the series did journey to manu other destinations: Paris, Beijing, Thailand, Uzbekistan, Papua New Guineas, Hawaii, and South Africa, as well as other regional guides (Central Asia, US cities, Western Europe, etc.)

Despite being a spinoff of a BBC (ugh!) TV series, I don't know its inherently hateful, but I am suspicious that a Siberian expert with no other writing history is sent to a place experiencing a Marxist revolution, during the midst of anti-Christian pogroms; and then of the fact that whoever write the Wikipedia article thought this little snippet was essentially all he needed to know about Goa.

[CarrotAndStick]

Perhaps.

I did notice however, the issue is pretty sensitive in Jewish circles.

Most Jews in India have left for Israel since that country was established (however they retain their ties with India, and many still speak Indian tongues in Israel, and come to visit friends they left behind in India).

So, I have very little Indian Jewish sources to quote from.

The links and excerpts I posted earlier were from Jewish sources, mostly based in the US and/ or Israel.