Secularism in practice

The Archbishop of Cuttack today approached the Supreme Court seeking a CBI probe into the violence against Christians in Orissa. The Archbishop's petition has also sought that the NHRC be asked to conduct a probe to find out which organisation was behind the Kandhamal violence.

Archbishop is setting a dangerous precedent by interfering in matters of political governance. Archbishop should restrain his activities to issues pertaining to religious matters same way we would not expect a Shankracharya or Imam of Jama Masjid to interfere during social tensions. Church cannot claim political leadership of christians across india, we have elected representatives in parliament who is responsible for providing political ledership to the country. Its not the first time church is dabbling into political matters.

In kerala, Self-Financing Colleges Act aimed at controlling, and bringing under state control, the engineering and medical colleges, predominantly, controlled by the church, evoked sharp protests and violent agitations by the church. So much so that Church threatened a 'second liberation struggle' to rid Kerala of communist rule.

The Kerala Bishops' Council consisting of religions heads of all major church faction like Syro-Malankara Catholic, Roman Catholic, Marthoma, Malankara, Orthodox, Latin Catholic, CSI etc have formed an 'Inter Church Council for Education' to unify their agitations. 'Pastoral letters' were read in all the churches against the CPM's tactic to infringe on minority rights enshrined in the Constitution. The Bishop thundered and called upon church followers to even spill blood and sacrifice lives to protect Christianity and said

"Nobody will be allowed to destroy education institutions run by the church and any persecution on institutions will be strongly resisted. Taking away rights of appointments of teachers and staff, making Sundays working days and handing over control of church-run institutions to local bodies, will be strongly resisted. If CPM has its way, students will wish each other 'Lal salam', 'Inquilab zindabad,' totally destroying faith, culture and religions values",