Christian subversion and missionary activities

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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Catholic priests seek to adopt Hindu rituals </b>

Wednesday, October 26, 2005 (Pune):


<b>A gathering of leading Catholic clergymen from all over India have asked the Vatican to endorse their proposal to include Hindu rituals in the church.</b>

The Pune Papal seminary said priests from all over India were unanimous that the Catholic clergy must incorporate Hindu practices like performing aarti during mass, studying Sanskrit and the Vedas, and experiencing ashram life.

The Catholic Church's Indianisation process began in the mid 1960s, when a revolutionary council introduced local traditions and practices like mass in regional languages.

<b>Four decades later, the Catholic Church feels there is a need to give that process a fresh emphasis. </b>

"The Catholic Church plans to adopt a number of Indian traditions and practices, which will give us a feel of being an Indian," said Father Ornellas Coutinho, Rector, Pune Papal Seminary.

Countering arguments

After producing four cardinals, 69 bishops and over 11,000 priests during the past 50 years, the Catholic Church in India is now stressing for lesser control from the Vatican to make it truly Indian and genuinely Christian.

<b>The priests say one of the reasons for making these changes official is to neutrailise the arguments of the Hindu right-wingers, who often charge the church with forcible conversions and negating Indian traditions. </b>

"It would definitely put a check on the so-called fundamentalists who keep blaming us for conversions," said Father Lionell Mascarenhas, a priest.

<b>The final word now rests with the Vatican, and if the initiative gets the nod, it may well redefine the practices of the Church in India</b>. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->