Posted on 04/11/2006 9:57:54 PM PDT by 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."
I would also note that the group is funded by Bhutan and Myanmar. I know little about Bhutan, but Myanmar is certainly no friend of Christians!!!
The question was not posed in a condescending manner. It's really quite simple. Christianity preaches love for God first, followed by love for neighbor. Do the Hindu gods teach something similar and if so, what?
Be strong. You have acquitted yourself well. Please know that these flakes are a very strange and very tiny subset of FR, and we value your contributions greatly.
>> So not having that , this poor guy is working at a new idea......'please grant me asylum and make me US citizen because I am a persecuted christian minority in India , and if you dont those hindu fascists will certainly kill me'....... <<
Wow! You read all that into what he said? What do you read into what all those CIA types who are constantly watching you are saying? Or is your brain chip not working properly lately?
I fly the French flag whenever the weather is really nice and I have a load of whites that need to dry... ;^D
It bans conversion by "coersion and incitement?"
INCITEMENT to CONVERT?
You make that sound like incitement to riot.
Whatever takes form is false.
Only the formless endures.
When you understand
The truth of this teaching,
You will not be born again.
For God is infinite,
Within the body and without,
Like a mirror,
And the image in a mirror.
As the air is everywhere,
Flowing around a pot
And filling it,
So God is everywhere,
Filling all things
And flowing through them forever.
- Ashtavakra Gita 1: 18-20
Among the wealthy, compassionate men claim the richest wealth,
For material wealth is possessed by even contemptible men.
Find and follow the good path and be ruled by compassion.
For if the various ways are examined, compassion will prove the means to liberation.
- Tirukkural 25: 241-242
I am not detachment nor salvation,
Nor anything reached by the senses;
I am behold all thought and form.
I am everywhere, and nowhere at all-
I am Consciousness and Bliss.
I am Shiva! I am Shiva!
- Shankaracharya
He who hates no single being, is friendly and compassionate, free from self-regard and vanity, the same in good and evil, patient; Contented, ever devout, subdued in soul, firm in purpose, fixed on Me in heart and mind, and who worships Me, is dear to Me.
Bhagavad Gita 12:13-14
He that does everything for Me, whose supreme object I am, who worships Me, being free from attachment and without hatred to any being, this man, Arjuna!, comes to Me.
Bhagavad Gita 11:55
>> How would you feel if a black or a muslim American tells you how much he hates America and cannot get a job there because of his color/faith ? <<
I saw no statement of how he hates India. However, if he had a law degree and couldn't find a job, I would think that there is a problem there. I don't know many unemployed black lawyers, though.
>> 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. <<
Do you know her? It seems we may have a friend in common?
As in, 'Here's 50 dollars, a t-shirt and a bag of rice. Now convert.'
Mind you, this is being done by Hindu, Christian, Muslim and other groups, to win numbers.
Otherwise, how are events like this possible, if hearts were truly won?:
VHP reconverts 342 to Hinduism
http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=65846
Oh lovely way to make your point. Amid fiery speeches by government leaders demanding the deportation of Christians and banning of conversions TO Christianity, 342 people switched back to Hindu.
Carrot, if Calabash or Soldier had posted that, it would be one thing. But you don't see how bad that article makes the anti-Christian fervor sound? It makes it sound like those people professed Hindu because they were terrified of what might happen to them if they didn't! I hardly imagine that with public leaders making such proclamations, that they felt they could rely on the vigorous protection of the law!
Ummm ... the Babylonians invented the place-value system and notation for zero, not the Hindus, and the Hindus took the modern use of zero from Alexander's Greek astronomers, who were already then using it. As to the utility of the whole system, consider that the great works of Greek mathematics were done in an entirely geometrical manner, as were the civil works of the Romans, while modern computers use binary.
No I don't see how this has any relevance tot he general state of education in India prior to the British colonialization.
>> According to the new bill (not yet law), even events like this would be illegal. <<
And for the record, the article states that the bill would ban only conversions TO Christianity, not to Hindu, so you're asserion is full of cra@p.
Hogwash.
That's not the bill stating that, that was what that Hindu zealot wanted. The bill doesn't discriminate between religions. If it did, it would automatically violate the Indian Constitution's secularism clause.
Let me put it again, the ones whom you refer to as "public" leaders, aren't elected politicians. They go about re-converting people to Hinduism. The ones who proposed the bill, are elected officials. And as such, no bill can discriminate between religions. It would violate the constitution.
As per the bill, the activities of the VHP in "reconverting" tribals would be illegal.
That aside, I've mentioned Israel enacted similar anti-conversion laws way back in 1977. What's your view on that?
| Devanagari Numeral |
Arabic/Western Numeral |
Sanskrit word for the numeral |
|---|---|---|
| ० | [[0 (number)|0]] | shuunyaha |
| १ | [[1 (number)|1]] | ekaha |
| २ | [[2 (number)|2]] | dwitiyaha |
| ३ | [[3 (number)|3]] | tritityaha |
| ४ | [[4 (number)|4]] | chaturaha |
| ५ | [[5 (number)|5]] | panchaha |
| ६ | [[6 (number)|6]] | shashtihi |
| ७ | [[7 (number)|7]] | sapthami |
| ८ | [[8 (number)|8]] | ashtaha |
| ९ | [[9 (number)|9]] | navaha |
The Indian place-system numerals spread to neighboring Persia, where they were picked up by the conquering Arabs. In 662, a Nestorian bishop living in what is now called Iraq said :
I will omit all discussion of the science of the Indians ... of their subtle discoveries in astronomy - discoveries that are more ingenious than those of the Greeks and the Babylonians - and of their valuable methods of calculation which surpass description. I wish only to say that this computation is done by means of nine signs. If those who believe that because they speak Greek they have arrived at the limits of science would read the Indian texts they would be convinced even if a little late in the day that there are others who know something of value.
The addition of zero as a tenth positional digit is documented from the 7th century by Brahmagupta, though the earlier Bakhshali Manuscript, written sometime before the 5th century, also included zero.
As it was from the Arabs that the Europeans learnt this system, the Europeans called them Arabic numerals; ironically, to this day the Arabs refer to their numerals as Indian numerals. In academic circles they are called the Hindu-Arabic or Indo-Arabic numerals.
as a former citizen of India and a practicing non-brahmin Hindu, these are my observations. First off, the average Indian middle-class citizen has many many things on his mind more important to him than religion, not very unlike the average American's stance in the evolution/creationism debate. 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.
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. Most Indian neighborhoods have an old grandpa around who regales children with tales of the independence struggle against the "white-man" barely 60 years ago. To draw a parallel, what do you think would happen to a white dude who goes into any inner-city in American and hurls slavery-era slurs at the residents there?
That is the net effect on the average Indian psyche, when a political party like the BJP( and its supporters like the RSS, VHP) uses Hinduism as an electoral platform. But also to be remembered, is that the BJP was booted out after just one term because this platform is not sustainable in Indian. All religion and no development is not acceptable by the Indian people, and they demonstrated that by electing a party led by an Italian Roman Catholic Woman.
The anti-conversion proposal in its present form is stupid and unimplementable in India and is merely political posturing in my opinions. Like Cronos mentioned, if Mother Teresa preached to one of her patients and he/she wanted to convert to Christianity, there should be no State or Individual preventing him from doing so. Such a proposal should involve the state in this issue, but merely as an observer. A line should be drawn using which the judiciary (NOT THE STATE) can decide whether a particular conversion does indeed improve the socio-economic condition of an individual or is just a purchase of a person's soul for Rs.500. Akin to how the INS makes random calls to verify whether a particular marriage is genuine or has just been done for a green-card.
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