Kerala Church condemns depiction of Jesus bys Communists

(February 03, 2012) The Marxist Communist Party of India (CPI-M) in Southern India’s Kerala state has drawn the condemnation of the Catholic Church for branding Jesus as a communist revolutionary in a history exhibition that opens next week. The exhibition, titled ‘Marx Alone Is Right’, includes a section called “Martyrdom, Christ to Che,” will officially open during the party’s state conference in Thiruvananthapuram. Archbishop Maria Calist Soosapakiam of Thiruvananthapuram has condemned the exhibit as having a “hidden political agenda”. The prelate, who is president of the Kerala Region Latin Catholic Council, said “the communists have always shown disregard for the teachings of Jesus and tried to humiliate Church leaders….” “We hope they will rectify their mistake and not hurt the religious sentiments of the true believers of Jesus Christ,” he said in the statement. Fr Paul Thelakat, spokesman for the eastern-rite Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, said the people can make out the sinister designs of the Marxists. The Marxists have been at loggerheads with the Church whenever it has come to power in Kerala where Christians constitute 22 percent of its 32 million residents.