Posted on 09/09/2008 5:52:25 PM PDT by tcg
Orissa has a dark history of communal violence and hatred. There is the burning to death of Graham Staines and his two young sons in 1999. His family was engaged in the care of leprosy patients. However, this time, the intensity of the violence has grown into inhuman and unimaginable proportions. It has also done great damage to the age old coexistence and diversity of India, both at home and abroad. The gang raping of nuns, burning alive of human beings, destruction of churches, setting fire to the orphanages and houses of the poor, beating up and public humiliation of priests are not marks of a humane culture and true democracy. Yet in India, they thrive and survive!
The trump card of forced conversion has also been played by the fanatics this time. Certain media ‘analysts’, of a pro-Hindu fundamentalist nature, have been vocal in demonizing missionaries and even the Pope, who is the supreme spiritual head of the Catholic Church. A close scrutiny of these articles reveals them to be a bundle of lies patched together. They forget centuries of differences coexisting. Some portray missionaries as only engaged in the tribal areas; conveniently forgetting the fact that majority of urban India is served and supported by the missionaries and benefits fromn their energy through a chain of elite schools and affordable hospitals.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholic.org ...
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