INDIA, October 26, 2011: Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, has written a message to Hindus for the feast of Diwali, entitled: ‘Christians and Hindus: together in Promoting Religious Freedom’.
Religious freedom, the text reads, currently takes ‘centre stage in many places, calling our attention to those members of our human family exposed to bias, prejudice, hate propaganda, discrimination and persecution on the basis of religious affiliation. Religious freedom is the answer to religiously motivated conflicts in many parts of the world. Amid the violence triggered by these conflicts, many desperately yearn for peaceful coexistence and integral human development’.
The message continues: ‘Religious freedom is numbered among the fundamental human rights rooted in the dignity of the human person. When it is jeopardised or denied, all other human rights are endangered. Religious freedom necessarily includes immunity from coercion by any individual, group, community or institution. Though the exercise of this right entails the freedom of every person to profess, practise and propagate his or her religion or belief, in public or in private, alone or in a community, it also involves a serious obligation on the part of civil authorities, individuals and groups to respect the freedom of others. Moreover, it includes the freedom to change one’s own religion’.
[HPI note: This message is, unfortunately, representative of the Catholic Holy See’s attitude toward other religions. Instead of respecting a sacred date of the Hindu calendar and simply wishing Hindus a good celebration, their message focuses on contention and a thinly disguised strike against Hinduism. The motto “religious freedom,” a lofty concept in itself, has been used relentlessly by the church to mean “freedom to convert others” by all means possible.]