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An Ecclesiastical State is lecturing the world's largest secular Democracy ?  

“Christian nations have produced, and indeed in the name of Christianity, things even more hateful than the pariah village of India."

                             -  Nicol Macnicol (1870 - 1952) Professor and author of  Is Christianity Unique  p. 52.  

***

Pope has said that India must ensure that "no citizen should ever have to experience discrimination for any reason, especially based on ethnic or religious background or social position". 

What discrimination is the Pope talking about?

This is one piece of advice which should never be given to India and Indians by any body, least of all by some one who occupies the twin offices of head of state and head of religion. Though 80 per cent of the population is Hindu, India has a Muslim President, a Sikh Prime Minister and an Italian-born Roman Catholic Super Prime Minister. Such is the level of tolerance and acceptance of diversity among the Hindu majority that a good percentage of them backed the Congress party-led coalition in the last parliamentary elections in the full knowledge that they could be electing Italian-born Ms Sonia Gandhi as Prime Minister.

Finally, one wishes that the Vatican itself would see merit in the unsolicited prescription that the Holy Father has handed down to us. The State of Vatican City, which the Pope heads, is spread over a total geographical area of around 109 acres. It is a State in which "religion" is synonymous with "state". Its only commitment is to the advancement of the Roman Catholic Church and all the concordats (agreements) it has signed with governments for regulation of Church affairs vouch for this. At last count it had 932 residents of whom 555 were citizens. All its citizens are Roman Catholics. India has over 1,100 million citizens (two million for every citizen in the Vatican!) and they belong to all the major religions in the world. 

Thus, the world's smallest state - and an ecclesiastical state at that - is lecturing the world's largest secular democracy. This is one sermon we could do without. 

(source: A sermon we don't need  - By A Surya Prakash June 6 2006 Edit page - dailypioneer.com). Refer to Christian Conversions and Terrorism in North-East India

***

“Every Indian Christian is considered to be a second class Christian in the Vatican” - observed Paulos Mar Gregorios

“Every Indian Christian is considered to be a second class Christian in the Vatican” -- this was revealed by the late Paulos Mar Gregorios (1922- 1996) who was the Metropolitan of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Delhi. He was a man of much substance. In addition to his religious qualifications he was a distinguished scholar. At one time he was the President of the Indian Philosophical Congress. He was also for some time the President of the World Council of [Christian] Churches. 

Gregorios asked the Pope John Paul II what he thought was the reason for such a small percentage of Indians having converted to Christianity although it had been in India for so long. The Pope said to him the reason was that the Indian mind was not developed enough to understand the subtlety of thought of St. Gregory of Nyssa or of St. Thomas Aquinas. Somewhat taken aback Metropolitan Gregorios asked the Pope if he had read Shankara or Nagarjuna. He was immediately shown out of the room where the audience was taking place.  As he said, he realized for the first time and first hand that every Indian Christian is considered to be a second class Christian in the Vatican. This was even more galling for him because he belonged to a branch of Christianity as ancient as any. 

It illustrates that the Eurocentricism, and the associated sense of superiority of the European races and culture, which has very much coloured Christian doctrine, does not seem to have yet suffered the fact of the shift in religious demographics.

(source: What Calls You, Pilgrim? - By Ravi Ravindra - infinityfoundation.com). Refer to Christian Supremacy: Pushing the Dhimmitude of Non-Christians in America. Refer to chapter on European Imperialism.

***

A Sermon for the Pope

Helen Ellerbe a researcher, writer, and public speaker, has observed in her book, The Dark Side of Christian History that:

"There has been no more organized effort by a religion to control people and contain their spirituality than the Christian Inquisition. Developed within the Church’s own legal framework, the Inquisition attempted to terrify people into obedience. 

As the Inquisitior Francisco Pena stated in 1578, “We must remember that the main purpose of the trial and execution is not to save the soul of the accused but to achieve the public good and put fear into others.” 

The Inquisition took countless human lives in Europe and around the world as it followed in the wake of missionaries. 

Pope Innocent II ( ? - 1143) born Gregorio Papareschi and was Pope from 1130 to 1143, declared: 

“that anyone who attempted to constitute a personal view of God which conflicted with Church dogma must be burned without pity.” 

Natives who did not convert to Christianity were burned like any other heretic. The Inquisition spread as far as Goa, India, where in the late 16^th and early 17^th centuries it took no less than 3,800 lives.

” If the image of God venerated in a foreign land was not Christian, it was simply not divine. "

(source: The Dark Side of Christian History - By Helen Ellerbe p. 76 - 92). 

Refer to Holy Terror: The Black Bequest of the Inquisition and The Inquisition and A History of The Malleus Maleficarum - Throughout the middle Ages and the entire period of the witchcraft hysteria, the Malleus Maleficarum was the most influential guide used for the persecution and torture of witches and heretics.

"The Christian resolve to find the world evil and ugly, has made the world evil and ugly."

                                          -  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher.

***

Leave India alone. We don't want evangelists. We Hindus have our problems but we can resolve them and we do not require your kind services. Hindus and Christians have been living in peace in India.

The Government of India is so scared of saying anything that may hurt 'minority' sentiments that it will swallow any insults to the majority community without so much as battling an eyelid.

The Pope, Benedict XVI has the audacity to read a lecture to India on the rights of the Church to convert Hindus to Christianity. The Pope is a German and one wants to know what the Church under Pope was doing when Hitler sent 10 million Jews first to concentration camps and then to gas chambers. And he now has an Indian Cardinal as an advisor who should know what the Indian constitution says. He couldn't have been ignorant. The Pope also hopefully knows what the Church's barbaric priests did to Goan Hindus for almost two centuries. The inquisition that was responsible for the wholesale destruction of Hindu temples and the cruelty shown to Hindus has not been forgotten. India does not need a Pope to tell it how to run its government.

The Pope is a fundamentalist

In his conversation with India's newly appointed representative to the Vatican, the Pope spoke of Hindu 'fundamentalists'. May we kindly remind His Holiness that there are no 'fundamentalists' among Hindus? Hindus can be dvaitist, advaitists, vishishtaadvaitists, nastiks, Jains, Buddhists and worship any god or goddess they prefer. It is the Pope who is a fundamentalist - and we don't blame him for that. Otherwise he won't be a Pope.

The Church as a whole is fundamentalist and would not even suffer nuns being taught to practise Yoga. A Jesuit priest in Mumbai who sought to do was summoned to London where he did. Very sad. Thereafter the teaching of yoga to nuns in Mumbai came to an end. Hindus, to use a rather indistinct word, are more catholic than Catholics themselves.

But just in case the Pope does not know the history of Goa and how Christianity was introduced there, he should check with his Indian Cardinal adviser on Evangelism, how Portuguese Jesuits sought to forcibly introduce Christianity in a village in Goa called Cuncolim. Five Jesuit priests were sent to Cuncolim to destroy a temple and replace it with a church. In defence, the villagers killed the priests. The Church thereupon invited the village elders to a peace summit, Your Holiness. Innocently the elders accepted the invitation whereupon they were trapped and killed. The Jesuit priests were called martyrs and, in its official history of the episode, the Church characterised the people of Cuncolim as cold-blooded murderers.

Attempts at conversion are relics of feudal imperialism and the white man's ignorance and arrogance. Any attempt at conversion will definitely be resisted because it is an insult to India and to its hoary traditions. Hindus have no quarrels with Christians. Kindly do not start one.

(source:  A Sermon for the Pope - By M V Kamath - cybernoon.com). 

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Papal bull  

"The Bible account of the creation of Eve is a preposterous fable."

"The dogma of the infallibility of the Bible is no more self-evident than is that of the infallibility of the popes."

                                          - Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895)  English biologist.

***

The Pope has got it awfully wrong ---- No purpose is served by criticising Pope Benedict XVI for pleading the cause of missionaries in India seeking to harvest the souls of 'heathens'. As head of the Catholic Church the Pontiff, variously referred to as 'Panzerkardinal' and 'God's Rotweiler' for his ferocious commitment to promoting his faith, is within his rights to castigate any attempts to curb the enthusiasm of missionaries.  

Indeed, he would be failing in his duties if he were to unquestioningly accept the supremacy of the state in a secular country. Having said that, it would be in order to point out that the man who presides over the Vatican and provides spiritual sustenance to millions of Catholics around the world is astonishingly ill-informed. Had that not been the case, he would not have described anti-conversion laws that exist in some States in this country as "discriminatory restrictions on the fundamental right of religious freedom".

The Constitution of India, the Pope's advisors should have told him, guarantees the right to profess, practise and propagate any religion; what it does not promise is the right to proselytise or convert people from one faith to another through deceit, allurement or force. The anti-conversion laws that the Pope has referred to while reading out his objectionable homily to India's new Ambassador to the Vatican have been framed to prevent abuse of freedom of religion and have nothing to do with partisan ideology as he has cunningly suggested. 

The Neogi Commission of Inquiry's report, a treasure trove of evidence about deceitful preachers indulging in rice bowl conversions, provided the basis for anti-conversion legislation in Madhya Pradesh and subsequently in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh; in Gujarat and Chhattisgarh, similar laws are of recent vintage, while in Rajasthan the Governor is trying her best to block a Bill to demonstrate her loyalty to the presiding deity of the Congress.

Pope Benedict XVI has also erred in commenting on India's internal affairs that are beyond the legitimate concerns of the Holy See - he has no right to patronisingly suggest how Indian society should manage its contradictions, nor do the people of India need a certificate from him about how they conduct themselves or exercise their rights. Just as India has no business to tell the Holy See how to run the Catholic Church although it would be within its rights to remind the Pope that an apology is long over due for the appalling excesses of the Goa Inquisition.

(source: Papal bull - Dailypioneer.com Edit page May 22 06). For Goa Inquisition, refer to chapter on European Imperialism.

Uma Bharti slams Pope Benedict for condemning religious conversion ban

Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharti has criticized Pope Benedict for condemning Hindu nationalist attempts to ban religious conversions in the country. "We do not have to learn secularism from Pope because Hinduism is a religion which believes in worshipping all faith and respects all faiths .It shows the intention of Pope that they want to convert people in India into Christianity. Hinduism is probably the only religion, which allows its followers to read any scripture or to go to any religious place. In this country if a Hindu wants to read Bible he doesn't have to convert into Christianity he can read a Bible and remain a Hindu, "

Note: Both Christianity and Islam are Aggressive missionary religions whose scriptures tell believers to spread the faith. Several Asian countries have considered banning conversion or found ways to discourage it in recent years. Under pressure from hardline nationalist Buddhist monks, the Sri Lankan cabinet approved such a bill last year but later dropped it. Indonesia has no such law but a court jailed three Christian women last year for allegedly trying to convert Muslim children. Malaysia refers apostasy cases to Islamic courts, where converts can get up to three years for abandoning Islam. Saudi Arabia bars non-Muslims from building churches or making any public expression of their faith.

(source: Uma Bharti slams Pope Benedict for condemning religious conversion ban - yahoo.com). Refer to Christians Hopeful With Nepal's "Secular State" Declaration. Refer to The Dangers of Monotheism in the Age of Globalization - By Jean-Pierre Lehmann - theglobalist.com).   Also refer to Pope says low birth rates in Canada due to 'pervasive effects of secularism'  and refer to Luigi Cascioli - "The Fable of Christ" and The God Who Wasn't There and Debunking Christianity. Refer to chapter on European Imperialism

On Saturday, BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar rejected the pope's comments. "There is much more freedom here than in many countries. Freedom of religion does not mean conversions by coercion and allurements," he was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency. Ashok Singhal, head of the right wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), or World Hindu Council, also criticized the pope's remarks.

"Vatican is a state. Can anybody propagate and convert Christians in Vatican?" he asked.

(source:  India reacts to Pope's remarks by asserting religious tolerance - yahoonews.com). (Note: In February 2004, Tehelka had published a voluminous piece on conversion plans of the US. The Vatican too, is sparing no effort: it is pouring money to convert the Heathen Hindus in India. 

Any resistance is immediately dubbed as a “Hindu Nationalist conspiracy &c.” Saith the Pope

India does not come under the jurisdiction of Christendom. 

India, when last heard of, was a vibrant, secular democracy? India does not come under the jurisdiction of Christendom. This makes Pope Benedict XVI's little lecture to the Indian Ambassador to the Holy See about India's secular responsibility and traditions a trifle hard to swallow. It started of course with Benedict XVI's predecessor John Paul II who seven years ago took it upon himself to remind India that conversion is a right enshrined in the Constitution. The latest message of the current Pope, that it is disturbing to see some Indian states outlawing religious conversion, takes that feeling a step further. The reason for this disquiet in the Catholic Church comes from the BJP-run states in India that have passed anti-conversion laws and the attempts of Tamil Nadu to follow suit. These subjects have been part of the Indian discourse. The Constitution does allow the freedom to propagate and spread religion.

(source: India does not come under the jurisdiction of Christendom - centralchronicle.com). 

Note: Famed physicist Stephen Hawking (1942 - ) author of A Brief History of Time said that Pope John Paul II tried to discourage him and other scientists attending a cosmology conference at the Vatican from trying to figure out how the universe began. 'I didn't fancy the thought of being handed over to the Inquisition like Galileo,'' Hawking said in a lecture to a sold-out audience at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. 

Galileo ran afoul of the Roman Catholic Church in the 17th century for supporting Copernicus' discovery that the Earth revolved around the sun. The church insisted the Earth was at the center of the universe. 

(source:  Pope said not to study universe's origin -  suntimes.com). For more refer to The Dark Side of Christian History - By Helen Ellerbe.

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Are Indians Genetically Stupid? - Ratzinger of Hamelin  
Pompous Popism for Anti-Conversion Laws ?

Spiritual Supremacy?

"We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff."

                                 –  Pope Boniface VIII  (1235 - 1303) Bull Unun Sanctum 1302.

***

The incumbent Pope who ferociously upholds his Church’s divine mandate to plant the cross in India takes after his infamous countryman immortalized by the Brothers Grimm. This character is believed to have brought first disease and then death disguised as music in his wake, into every village wherein he set foot. Victims of the violent and aggressively proselytizing Church have known that historically the Cross has always been synonymous with disease and death; the Catholic Church is known to have introduced small-pox, malaria and various strains of the influenza virus into societies that it wished initially to pacify and eventually to convert and conquer or exterminate. All through the twentieth century and continuing into the twenty-first century the cross has modernized its arsenal and is now accompanied by drugs, gun-running, prostitution and pedophilia hidden inside the “Jesus died for you” Trojan horse. 

Not surprisingly, a recent UN report on drug abuse has found pervasive “substance dependence” (read drug abuse) among the people of India’s Christian-majority North-East.

The Second Vatican Council vigorously affirmed that the Church is missionary by nature (Ad Gentes) and that the Church’s primary mission is to plant the cross in every corner of the globe. Christianity is a murderous politico-religious doctrine which cloaks predatory territorial conquest in an intolerant religious dogma. The evangelizing and proselytizing Church describes herself as the bride and body of Christ – and this sexist analogy, coupled with money-backed religious conversion, comes with all its unfortunate attendant baggage of abuse and well-deserved names for this religion and its agents, which connote commercializing, and promoting the commercialization of the female body.

The incumbent Pope exemplifies this White Christian intolerance of non-Christian cultures and its congenital arrogance, as his diatribe against the newly appointed Indian Ambassador to the Vatican proves. Nothing but White Christianity’s core belief that non-White peoples are genetically stupid can explain how the Pope could lecture/hector the Indian Ambassador on the virtues of social justice, tolerance, peace, religious freedom, and India’s spiritual heritage. The Pope even had opinions on the Rajasthan government’s decision to bring in an anti-conversion law, Pakistan-India relations, on Kashmir, on the National Integration Council, on India’s Ministry for Minority Affairs and on “violence linked to political and religious extremism in the region”. The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things; and poor Ambassador Amitava Tripathi had no choice but to listen.

From this comic interlude we may safely conclude that the Pope assumed that the highly professional members of the Indian Foreign Service have never heard of the Christian genocide of Native Americans, the natives of the Caribbean, Australia, Asia and Africa in the name of colonization and the Atlantic Slave Trade. In keeping with this mindset, the Pope probably also assumed that Indians have never heard of the Spanish Inquisition, and its Indian Chapter, the Goa Inquisition, and that Indians, genetically stupid as he probably believes, can still be conned into buying the Vatican’s fairy-tale about Francis Xavier. One thing is for sure; our suave diplomats have been imparted strict training not to laugh in the faces of their hosts when they are forced to listen to drivel.

(source: Ratzinger of Hamelin  - vigilonline.com).  Refer to chapters on European Imperialism, Pacific and First Indologists.

Wincing over Da Vinci

Gujarat and Rajasthan both states figure on the Bishop of Rome’s radar for daring to enact anti-conversion laws to protect India’s civilizational continuity and national character. Pope Benedict XVI’s remarks challenged our sovereignty and the UPA response was tepid because of the supremacy of an Italian-born Roman Catholic, who refused to rebuff this gross insult to her adopted country, though her acolytes had claimed she was a ‘Hindu’ when she stormed into Tirupathi without signing the register for non-Hindu visitors.

Interestingly, even as the head of Christendom’s largest sect was interpreting our constitution for us and telling us to behave so he could make good (Christian) souls out of us, the Vatican executed a duplicitous charade on the issue of faith conversions. 

According to news reports, between May 12–16, the Pope's Council for Inter-religious Dialogue and the Office on Inter-religious Relations & Dialogue of the World Council of Churches invited a group of carefully selected persons from the Bauddha, Christian, Hindu, Islamic, Judaic and Yoruba (Nairobi) traditions to evolve a common code of conduct for conversions.

Now this is half-clever. A Church-chosen gathering endorses the Christian position that conversions are legitimate, and agrees to prescribe certain procedures by which these may be undertaken. Missionaries can thus work unimpeded while the cultures being cannibalized are made to shut up. A placebo was offered against “unethical” conversions; it was said: “there should be transparency in the practice of inviting others to one's faith.”

To my mind, conversions are innately unethical; the objective is to grab territory by making citizens abdicate from the natal tradition.

(source:  Wincing over Da Vinci - By Sandhya Jain - dailypioneer.com - May 30 2006 Edit page).

Avro Manhattan (1914-1990) 

The Vatican Holocaust - A sensational account of the most horrifying religious massacre of the 20th century. Startling revelations of forced conversions, mass murder of non-Catholics, Catholic extermination camps, disclosures of Catholic clergy as commanders of concentration camps; documented with names, dates, places, pictures and eyewitness testimony.

(source: The Vatican Holocaust - By Avro Manhattan). Refer to Christian Missionary Atrocities around the World - burning cross.com

Don't preach us, India tells Pope

In a "firm, appropriate and timely" response, India on Tuesday told the Vatican that it disapproved Pope's criticism against banning conversions and his remarks on religious intolerance in the country. Sharma was responding to agitated members of BJP led by Ravi Shanker Prasad who during Zero Hour in Parliament said the Pope's statement was "grossly unwarranted and we protest and condemn it". Prasad attacked the UPA government of maintaining silence on the issue. The Vatican and the mostly Protestant and Orthodox World Council of Churches launched the initiative after Christian minorities in India complained about aggressive proselytising by newly arrived evangelical groups. The conversion meeting came two months after Afghanistan threatened to execute a Muslim convert to Christianity, who took refuge in Italy after an outcry from Western countries and the Vatican. 

Several Muslim states prescribe death for apostates.

(source: Don't preach us, India tells Pope - ibnlive.com and The God Who Wasn't There).

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