Letter on new Pope by N.Rao & Aditi B

[Guest guest]

Namaskar Mitra,

 

Friends Nagendra Rao and Aditi B have put together this note on new Pope.

If you like to mail feedback id hai n.s.rao (AT) att (DOT) net

 

With prem sanjeev

 

'We congratulate former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger on his election as the new

Pope Benedict XVI of the Roman Catholic Church. At the dawn of his papacy, we

deliver to him this message on behalf of more than one billion Hindus

worldwide.

 

We are open to an interfaith dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church but only if

it is in the spirit of an open dialogue among equals premised on mutual respect

and reason, not mere tolerance premised on the inherent superiority and

supremacy of the Catholic/Christian dogma. No meaningful dialogue is possible

unless the Pope retracts his categorizations of Buddhism as “spiritually

self-indulgent autoeroticism” and Hinduism as a religion that

“offers false hope” by guaranteeing “purification”

based on a “morally cruel” concept of reincarnation resembling

“a continuous circle of hell.” Under Pope John Paul II, the

Catholic Church finally got around to offering apologies to Jews and Muslims

for crimes dating back hundreds of years to the Grand Inquisition and beyond.

We have not found the same spirit of openness and contrition on the part of

either the Catholic Church or Pope John Paul II with regards to the pogroms of

the Catholic Church in Goa, India under the Portuguese – these were

amongst the most brutal, violent and fanatical of the Catholic Church’s

proselytizing activities anywhere in the world. One billion Hindus, while

congratulating Pope Benedict XVI as the new leader of the Catholic Church, also

demand a full apology for the horrors of the Inquisition visited upon Goa.

 

We note that while a full 2/3 of Catholics hail from the non-Western world, a

non-Westerner has yet to be elected Pope. In a world which is rapidly becoming

a global village, we have grave concerns about the prospect of a Pope whose

track record has been so fundamentalist and reactionary about non-Semitic

religions, especially Hinduism and Buddhism. Pope Benedict XVI as the former

Cardinal Ratzinger zealously stifled regional autonomy and viewpoint diversity

within the Catholic Church. In the name of Dominus Jesus, he was actively

hostile to the Asian church and cracked down on Asian clergy working towards

religious pluralism and true inter-religious harmony based on a dialogue

between equals. This is a continuation of the legacy of Pope John Paul II, who

severely repressed the growth of liberation theology in Latin America. As the

global community expands, the vision and reach of the Church progressively

narrows. We categorically reject the Dominus Jesus, authored by former Cardinal

Joseph Ratzinger, and its uncompromising declaration of the Roman Catholic

religion as the one and only true path to salvation. Such views are

anachronistic and unacceptable in a world of multiculturalism and religious

diversity.

 

We write today first and foremost as Hindus; but we also write as members of the

universal religion of humanism. We register our deep concern about the future

actions of the man known as “the Enforcer” and “God’s

Rottweiler” by his own co-religionists who have deep trepidations about

his intolerant and inflexible stances on theology and social mores. We are

disappointed on behalf of homosexuals, whose sexuality the new Pope considers

an “objective disorder.” We are disappointed on behalf of women

whose reproductive choice he seeks to repress. We are disappointed on behalf

of the droves of progressives and liberals within the Church he and the former

Pope have alienated to the point of driving them to other faiths or to no faith

at all. We are disappointed on behalf of the millions of Africans who died of

AIDS, and who are dying today, because he refuses to condone contraceptives

even to save their lives. In a sense, their blood is on the hands of the

former Cardinal Ratzinger.

 

We hope that the new papacy, in its devotion to the “sanctity of

life,” will begin to remedy the grave errors of its past.

 

Hinduism is the oldest living religion by far and the third largest religion in

the world. It is due to the resilient spirit of Sanatana Dharma that even after

a thousand years of Islamic conquest and hundreds of years of unyielding,

brutal, and aggressive Christian proselytizing, India endures as a Hindu nation

committed to the principle of religious pluralism and inter-religious harmony.

In this spirit of harmony and syncretism, Hindus proffer our hand in friendship

and harmony as equals to those who wish to reciprocate in kind. The

relationship between Hindus and the new papacy will turn on whether Pope

Benedict XVI has the grace and character to make amends for past wrongs and

begin afresh; on whether he has the wisdom to understand these words of Swami

Vivekananda: “The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a

Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit

of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own

law of growth.”

 

EOM.