2010-04-08 14:51:56

Christians announce special global prayer for Nepal


(April 08, 2010) Christian leaders in Nepal have called for a special period of prayers, as the country gears itself to promulgate a new constitution and guarantee the rights of religious minorities. Several Protestant pastors recently announced 40 days of global prayer for Nepal to be held April 14-May 23. The project is to pray for the country’s national constitution to be drafted by late May. Flyers from a group calling itself the Christian Advisory Committee for the New Constitution, have also been distributed, asking people to gather in Kathmandu’s open-air auditorium at noon on April 20. The leaflets ask people to urge all 25 political parties that form the national parliament to guarantee a secular Nepal, that citizens are allowed to practice any religion freely and that human rights are upheld.
Father Silas Bogati, director of Caritas Nepal, told UCA News on April 5 that he had attended a “high-level meeting” of Christian pastors. He said “There is now a strong feeling that we should try to have Christian representatives in the new national parliament, and there should be a well represented Christian forum to put forward to the government problems facing Christians,”
About 80 percent of Nepal´s 28.5 million people are Hindus. Buddhists form the next largest religious community. According to the Nepal Catholic Directory 2008-09, there are a total of 1.5 million Christians, 7,500 of them Catholics.
Nepal’s lawmakers have until May 28 to complete a new constitution after parliament in 2006 approved measures that converted Nepal, until then the world’s only Hindu nation, into a secular state.









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