Keepingitreal

India's conversions controversy

Anti-Christian riots have rocked several parts of India over the past month. The BBC's Soutik Biswas travels to a remote region in the eastern Orissa state, where it all began, to explore the touchy issue of religious conversions. They are among the over 13,000 Hindu untouchables-turned-Christian converts who continue to live in 11 camps in the district a month after a wave of anti-Christian violence convulsed the area. Most have fled their homes which were looted and torched by mobs shouting pro-Hindu slogans.At the root of the confrontation is an age-old rivalry between the majority local Hindu-tribes people and the converted Christians over land, affirmative action benefits and identity rights. Touchy issue -- But last month, it took an overtly religious turn after the killing of an octogenarian Hindu holy man who was a working among the tribes people, railing against conversions and arranging for reconversions of people returning to Hinduism. It is still unclear who killed Laxmananda Saraswati. But angry tribes-people turned on their Christian neighbours triggering off a spiral of violence that left over 20 dead.Changing faith has also become a messy issue thanks to a controversial 31-year-old state law which outlaws religious conversion by "force, inducement and fraud". It also instructs that every case of conversion has to be reported to and recorded by the local authorities.It is clear that the law was introduced primarily to stop the state's Hindu untouchables and tribes people, who comprise 39% of Orissa's population, from converting to Christianity. The punishment for converting these groups illegally is harsher than for converting groups such as higher caste Hindus..But both Christians and Hindus have flouted the law openly: only two cases of conversions - both, from Hinduism to Christianity, have been officially recorded in Kandhamal in the last 31 years!But the Christian population in the district has gone up by 56% between 1991 and 2001 alone, over four times the average population growth in the district. The Hindu population has grown by a more modest 12% during the same period.Orissa has a long and chequered history of Christian proselytising.SOURCE:BBCNEWS

Pope Ends Visit With Yankee Stadium Mass

Before a crowd of nearly 60,000 people at Yankee Stadium, Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday ended his first visit to the United States as leader of the Roman Catholic Church with a reminder to the flock that “obedience” to the authority of the church, even in a country that prizes individual freedom, is the foundation of their religious faith. During a six-day visit to Washington and New York, the pope addressed world issues, visited a synagogue and voiced deep shame over the child sexual abuse scandal that has damaged the church’s standing in many American dioceses.At a morning ceremony at ground zero, the pope blessed the World Trade Center site, where more than 2,700 people were killed in the terrorist attack, and prayed for peace.But at Yankee Stadium on a cool, brilliant Sunday afternoon, with an adoring audience of people waving yellow cloths, one of the colors of the Vatican, Benedict acted chiefly as pastor to America’s 65 million Catholics, laying out in simple terms their obligations to a church that represents what he has called the “one church” established on earth by God.“Authority. Obedience. To be frank, these are not easy words to speak nowadays,” the pope said in his homily during the Mass, held on an acre-size platform built over the Yankees infield, “especially in a society which rightly places a high value on personal freedom.”Three years after the death of Pope John Paul II, his popular and charismatic predecessor, the reserved and theologically erudite Pope Benedict XVI gently but unequivocally delineated the source of authority that has since devolved to him, and that he said was integral to the church itself.Referring to himself, he said, “The presence around this altar of the successor of Peter, his brother bishops and priests, and deacons, men and women religious, and lay faithful from throughout the 50 states of the union, eloquently manifests our communion in the Catholic faith, which comes to us from the apostles.” In the Gospels, the Apostle Peter was chosen by Jesus to lead the church, and each pope is said to be the successor of Peter. SOURCE OF THIS STORY

Vatican lists "new sins," including pollution

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Thou shall not pollute the Earth. Thou shall beware genetic manipulation. Modern times bring with them modern sins. So the Vatican has told the faithful that they should be aware of "new" sins such as causing environmental blight. The guidance came at the weekend when Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, the Vatican's number two man in the sometimes murky area of sins and penance, spoke of modern evils.Asked what he believed were today's "new sins," he told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that the greatest danger zone for the modern soul was the largely uncharted world of bioethics."(Within bioethics) there are areas where we absolutely must denounce some violations of the fundamental rights of human nature through experiments and genetic manipulation whose outcome is difficult to predict and control," he said. The Vatican opposes stem cell research that involves destruction of embryos and has warned against the prospect of human cloning. Girotti, in an interview headlined "New Forms of Social Sin," also listed "ecological" offences as modern evils. In recent months, Pope Benedict has made several strong appeals for the protection of the environment, saying issues such as climate change had become gravely important for the entire human race.Under Benedict and his predecessor John Paul, the Vatican has become progressively "green".  Continued...