English media barons and church bosses in closed-door meeting

Forwarded message
English media barons have a closed door meeting with church leaders

"Media personalities, including the
Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, N.
Ram, the Chief of Bureau of NDTV in
Chennai, Jennifer Arul, and the
General Editor of the Mangalam group
of publications, K.M. Roy, are among
those who are participating in
closed-door sessions at the CBCI
event."
Catholic Bishops' meet to discuss conversions
By Our Staff Reporter
The Hindu
Thursday, January 8, 2004
Thrissur, Jan. 7 - The debate over
religious conversions, including what
are sometimes referred to as "forced
conversions," have come into focus at
the 26th biennial general body
meeting of the Catholic Bishops
Conference of India (CBCI) that began
at the Marymatha Major Seminary at
Mulayam near here today.
The CBCI is the apex body of the
Catholic hierarchy in India,
comprising the three rites of Syro-
Malabar, Syro-Malankara and Latin. It
has taken up "Church and Social
Communications" as the theme of this
General Assembly, which will continue
till January 14.
In the run-up to the meeting, the
CBCI office-bearers had made known
their eagerness to address and settle
debates over conversion. Here the
CBCI office-bearers, including its
president, Archbishop Cyril Mar
Baselions, made it clear that the
Church was not opposed to the
introduction of any law against
forced conversion after ensuring that
they do not have the potential for
misuse.
Emphasising that such laws would not
affect the Catholic Church because
forced conversion was not on its
agenda, the Archbishop said it
believed that conversion was only a
transformation to the "Path of God"
and that it need not mean uprooting
from the religious and social
backgrounds of the converted.
He criticised some of the fundamental
groups within Christianity for
creating a bad name for the Church by
insisting on religious conversion.
He said that nobody could deny the
right of an individual to convert to
the "Path of God" because it was an
assertion of the freedom of the
conscience of that person, and some
of the Hindu groups were unwilling to
accept it. In such a context, if a
law is brought against forced
conversion, it could be misused, and
the help or assistance rendered to
the people in distress could be
misinterpreted to mean exertion of
pressure.
The Archbishop said he was willing to
discuss the issue with organisations
such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad,
the Bajrang Dal and the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh to ensure that
"there is not even an insinuation
that the Catholic Church is trying to
indulge in forced conversion."
The CBCI said the lack of
understanding of the changes in mass
communication had crippled its
efforts in communicating to the
people about the yeomen services it
had been rendering.
However, the Church wanted to ensure
that it was not carried away by the
technological changes and the
onslaught of consumerist values in
the media. This was emphasised by the
president of the congregation for the
Eastern Churches, Cardinal Daoud
Moussa, in his inaugural address.
He said even though the technological
changes had made communication an
instant process and brought the world
together, it should be recognised
that "such immediate and direct
connection did not always guarantee
true and genuine communication. No
sophisticated equipment or
technological progress can connect
people, if their hearts and minds are
far from each other. For, social
communication is not simply
transmission of facts and figures; it
is not propaganda, it is not
marketing of ideas."
Another issue the Church wanted to
discuss was the challenges it was
facing in its interventions in the
educational field. The CBCI office-
bearers felt that one of their future
conferences would discuss this issue.
The conference is likely to elect new
office-bearers. As per the custom,
the next president can be either from
the Syro-Malabar or Latin since the
existing president is from the Syro-
Malankara Church.
The Church leadership wants to bring
in greater unity between the three
rites through inner-Church dialogues.
"If we can deepen our spirituality of
communion and become solidly one, the
Catholic community in India is bound
to make a yet greater impact on the
building up of a better India," was
the message of the Church leadership.
About 150 Bishops, 26 Archbishops and
three Cardinals are attending the
conference, which is being held in
the State after a gap of seven years.
The Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop
Pedro Lopez Quintana, the Secretary
General of the CBCI, Bishop Percival
J. Fernandez, the vice president of
CBCI, Archbishop Vincent Concessao,
and the Archbishop of Thrissur, Mar
Jacob Thumkuzhy, were among those who
spoke.
Media personalities, including the
Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, N. Ram,
the Chief of Bureau of NDTV in
Chennai, Jennifer Arul, and the
General Editor of the Mangalam group
of publications, K.M. Roy, are among
those who are participating in
closed-door sessions at the CBCI
event.
http://www.hindu.com/2004/01/08/stories/2004010806501200.htm

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