Top Catholic leaders appeal for urgent halt to anti Christian violence in Orissa

(Aug.27, 2008):Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinals and Bishops have made repeated appeals for a halt to the anti-Christian violence in India’s eastern State of Orissa. On Tuesday, the Holy See expressed solidarity with the Church and its faithful in India; and on Wed. Pope Benedict made an appeal after the general audience, to all religious leaders and local authorities in India, to work together to re-establish between the members of the various communities the peaceful coexistence and the harmony that have always marked Indian society.
Earlier Archbishop Pedro Lopez Quintana, the Apostolic Nuncio to India, told Vatican Radio Aug. 26, that the Hindu fundamentalists are trying to impose a Hindu state on the entire population. He said “the fundamentalists, use an ideology with a Nazi, totalitarian foundation and religion is used as an instrument of manipulation." He said the fundamentalists try to convince other Hindus, that Christianity is a foreign ideology and that newly converted Christians, financially supported by foreign organizations, will take their jobs. However, the Archbishop said, he is not fearful for the future. "Hope is a reality that exists in India because dialogue and coexistence are part of the reality of Indian society” he added.
Then in an interview published in Italy's Corriere della Sera daily, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the head of the Vatican's council for inter-religious dialogue, said there was “no possible justification» for the assault.” Hinduism is the main religion in India, and relations with the country's religious minorities such as Christians, who account for 2.5 percent of the country's 1.1 billion people, and Muslims, who make up 14 percent are usually peaceful. However, Hindu nationalists often accuse Christian missionaries of luring poor people away from India's largest faith through bribes or coercion, an allegation churches have denied. The issue of conversions has sparked violence by hard-line Hindus throughout India's history society," Cardinal Tauran added..