Buddhists, Christians pray together for religious freedom
(March 01, 2011) Christian and Hindu religious leaders joined hundreds of Buddhist
religious leaders from around the world in Nepal last week to pray for peace and greater
religious freedom for minorities. The Feb. 24 -25 meeting began at the Bauddhanath
Buddhist temple in Kathmandu and ended in Lumbini, the birthplace of Gautama Buddha.
Organised by the Buddhist World Peace Association, the initiative will go on the road
to Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, South Korea and other predominantly Buddhist nations.
It will also travel to an additional 50 nations. According to Kenseng Lama, one of
the organiser of the Nepali event, the prayer meeting is meant to counter rising conflicts
and the repression of religious minorities. The initiative will be taken to countries
where religious freedom is violated, like Myanmar. Slogans will change in such locations
to avoid friction with the authorities. A number of Christian religious leaders,
both Catholic and Protestant, joined Buddhist religious leaders in prayer vigils.
One of the participants, Binod Thapa, a Protestant leader, noted that under the new
Nepali government, minority rights and the separation between state and religion are
among the new founding principles of the new constitution. Yet, Christians in Kathmandu
and other Nepali cities still do not have a place to bury their dead, and are still
threatened by Hindu extremists. Nepal became a secular state in 2006 after centuries
of rule by an absolute Hindu monarchy. Religious minorities, especially Christians
and Muslims, have only recently gained the right to build their own places of worship
and conduct religious functions in public.