From correspondents in Delhi, India, 12:30 PM IST
India has told the Vatican that while it strongly condemned the recent attacks on Christians and other religious groups in Orissa, as a 'flourishing democracy' it was totally capable of dealing with the situation and restoring 'law and order' in the trouble-torn state.
This was conveyed by senior officials of the Indian foreign ministry to the representative of the Holy See in New Delhi, Arch Bishop Pedro Lopez Quintana.
Arch Bishop Quintana and others from the Holy See mission in New Delhi met Indian officials last week after the Vatican issued a statement expressing concern over the attacks on Christians and others as a 'sin against God and humanity.'
But keeping up the pressure on India, the Italian foreign ministry on Monday called the Indian ambassador in Rome Arif S. Khan to its headquarters to express its 'deep concern and sensitivity' on the recent attacks on Christians in Orissa.
India, however, did not respond to the Italian decision and even refrained from issuing a formal statement about the meeting.
Sources said one reason why South Block had not summoned the Italian representative is because Rome's envoy here, Roberto Toscano, has not yet presented his credentials.
'In the course of their meeting Ambassador Massolo expressed the Italian government's deep concern and sensitivity regarding the recurrent episodes of inter-religious violence in the Indian state of Orissa resulting in numerous Christian, among other, victims within the context of the critical situation developing in that region,' a statement put out by the Italian foreign ministry in its website Tuesday said.
It added, 'The Secretary General was hopeful that the firm measures already adopted by the Indian authorities - fully illustrated by Ambassador Khan - are successful in quelling the violence and reinstating dialogue and mutual respect between the various segments of Indian society.'
The decision to convene the meeting with the Indian ambassador was taken at a cabinet meeting of the Italian government presided by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi last week.
The statement pointed out that Italy appreciates, 'the well-established practices of peaceful co-existence that have marked India's modern democracy and, under these dramatic circumstances, confirmed Italy and India's deep friendship and broad-based pro-active collaboration as two nations founded on the values of pluralism and respect for fundamental human rights, particularly that of religious freedom.'
Though the foreign ministry statement on the meeting was cautious, the Italian government has made it clear that it would ask France, which has the current chair of the European Union, to raise the issue of attacks on Christians in India at the forthcoming summit between the two sides in Marseilles later this month.
In its statement on Aug 26 the Vatican had condemned the attacks and described them as ' an affront to dignity, people's freedom and endanger peaceful coexistence.'
The Vatican spokesman had also condemned the death of Hindu religious leader Swami Lokhmananda Saraswati whose killing had sparked off a series of attacks on the local Christian community.
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The pope is head of large number of people with allegiance to his sect. That does not give him moral power to poke his nose foolishly in our internal affairs. His own clergy is doing lots of atrocities as news reports are washing the dirty linen. The UPA govt. has done right thing to Pope for the first time what he deserves. It should not retrace later.
Conversion work is going on much faster currently than any time before. The preachers say that Dalits,socalled backward castes and tribals are not Hindus and were neglected. So Christian converters will ask them to go to church instead of temple, give christan names, and not disclose them,etc. Very bad trickery.But people keep quiet at this insult to our great religion Hinduism as the government has given uplift of these people to these splitters of our nation, but again these people are also given quotas of jobs education as if they are Hindu lower castes. Nowadays poverty does not know castes,even big merchant caste people are very poor. govt. departments are swallowing all the money given to up lift poverty stricken people. this is very big atrocity in our democracy and destruction of our religion which was good for us for thousands of years and will be so infuture.
what caused the violence was Christian propaganda denigrating Hindu gods in idols, castes which are no longer there. A respected Hindu swami doing lot of social service and spiritual education was killed along with a few others. Lie was spread that this carnage was action of Naxalites. The Hindu crowds love their religion and knew the culprits and took law into own hands. this is not correct of course.
Christian propagandists are within legal rights,to propagate the gosepels of love and compassion, and this is no problem since they are essential tenets of any religion, more so Hinduism. they can do charity with love, but no conversion. Moreover Christianity is full of unsscientific absurdities rejected by the west itself. It should reform itself and liberate the Christian west from the materialism wrought by that religion.
Hinduism is age old as time. Halfbaked and immature western scholars of the 17/ 18 th cent. displayed great zeal to support missionaries in their zeal to 'convert' all Indians into Xianity by putting out absurd theories like Aryan invasion of India from Central Asia, Vedas being just mumbo jumbo of chants without sense, and so on. The objective of these absurdities was to steadily make Indians ashamed of their heritage and adopt the religion of the west. Today these absurdities are totally exposed by outstanding,unbiassed, earnest, and studious scholars in the West itself, echoing what our own spiritual leaders have been saying for millennia. Xianity is just a couple thousand yrs.old, hence the missionaries perpetuate untruths about Hinduism, and misuse secularist rights of free expression as right to convert, selling religion for material enticements to the poor and the ignorant. Except for a tiny fraction of perverse media men who equate the resurgence and self pride of Hindus with the politics of BJP, all Hindus will now throw out, true to their tradition, the onslaughts of missionaries.
If Jesus, Our LORD, can die for the sins of men, I don't see any reason why Indians of Christian faith, should complain. Die like the LORD and you will be in the Kingdom Heaven soon.
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