A trembling Pope John Paul II on Saturday promulgated a document to advance Christianity in Asia, while 3,500 paramilitary troops protected him against Hindu fundamentalists who are protesting “forced conversions” by missionaries.
The ring of steel around the pope has so far deterred radical Hindus from organizing their threatened street protests.
But it has not stopped them from taking out newspaper advertisements denouncing Christian zealots and efforts to convert low-caste Hindus and tribal people as “religious perversion” and “pure commerce.”
“We only want to tell you that religious conversion, which seems to be synonymous with the papal work, is violence pure and simple, particularly against the Hindu faith, which does not believe in conversion,” said an open letter to the pope on the front page of the daily Indian Express.
But in his apostolic exhortation that closed the Asian Synod of Bishops on Saturday night at New Delhi’s Sacred Heart Cathedral, the pope made it clear the Vatican is launching a Christian crusade in Asia in the new millennium. He warned that unless “the freedom of belief and worship is respected in every part of this continent . . . the whole edifice of human dignity and freedom is shaken.”
The emphasis on bringing Christ to more Asians is certain to infuriate Hindu fundamentalists who have demanded over recent weeks the pope must call a halt to conversions.
On Sunday, the pope began celebrating mass with tens of thousands of devout Christians crowded into a sports stadium in New Delhi. The mass was preceded by girls in beige and red saris doing traditional Indian dances, followed by a procession of cardinals and bishops from around Asia.
Earlier Saturday, India’s President K.R. Narayanan and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee told the pope at a reception that India was a nation enjoying complete religious tolerance and freedom of expression.
Vajpayee said: “You know, Holy Father, India is a land of religious freedom but we have some intolerant fringes.”
Police kicked and beat three demonstrators while they waved black flags and shouted insulting slogans at the pope as he laid a wreath at the memorial where Mahatma Gandhi was cremated. The pope has often praised Gandhi, the pacifist who led India to independence from British colonial rule.
“A culture cannot survive if it attends to the exclusive,” the pope wrote into the guest book at the memorial, borrowing a phrase from Gandhi.
But the 79-year-old pope, who reportedly has Parkinson’s disease, looked tired and weak as he shuffled the 200 yards to Gandhi’s monument leaning heavily on a walking stick.
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the pope was “fatigued” but determined to carry out the program of his 62-hour visit in India before he flies to Georgia on Monday.
A medical team has been constantly near the pope.
The heavy security arrangements were to assure that no embarrassing incidents mar the visit. India’s government seeks Western investment but not Western ideas and has dismissed the 1,500 reported anti-Christian incidents this year as “the work of only a handful of militants.”
The pope praised the fidelity of Asian Christians under persecution and told the synod, “They are churches that have known the shedding of blood and the host of Asian martyrs is surely their greatest glory.”
Though most Indians publicly abhor the attacks against Christians, in private many sympathize with radicals who try to preserve a lifestyle that allows the higher castes and the moderately affluent a comfortable existence. In India, drivers, maids, nannies, cooks and other household servants are paid less than $50 a month.
Most of these servants come from lower castes that have become increasingly rebellious, which Hindus blame on the teaching of Christian missionaries.
In their letter published this weekend the Hindu authors praised China for banning Christian missionaries there.
The Roman Catholic bishops’ offensive has particularly enraged radical Hindus anxious to preserve a caste system that, although outlawed on paper, remains the main pillar of rural society.
Some of India’s 350 million Dalits, known as Untouchables, see conversion to Christianity as a ready escape from a divine predestined fate that keeps them at the bottom of the social ladder and victims of exploitation and abuse by the higher castes.
New Delhi Roman Catholic Archbishop Alan de Lastic has denounced the Hindu campaign as based on “half-truths, lies and disinformation” and argues that in a secular country with a democratic system each individual has the right to choose his own credo.
“The anti-papal diatribe by the hard-line fundamentalists is only an excuse for them to continue their intimidation against Christians in India,” he said.
But the pope’s support for evangelization in Asia is likely to provide more fuel for Hindu militants and more hardships for India’s Christians.
