India’s Catholic bishops have urged the government to stop attempts to convert Christians and others to Hinduism.

A special consultation presided over by Cardinal Baselios Cleemis was called in New Delhi aimed at responding to a series of incidents in which mass conversion or ‘ghar wapsi’ programmes had been carried out or threatened by nationalist Hindu parties.

A statement from the bishops addressed to the prime minister, Narendra Modi, said: “India is a land where different religious faiths have long since flourished and our founding fathers made special efforts to ensure that the rights of all are safeguarded, irrespective of our religious beliefs, gender or caste.”

It said that the conversions or ‘reconversions’, as the instigators call them, had “hurt the sentiments of the Christian community” and “shaken the faith in the secular fabric of our nation”. It warned that “Communal polarisation and the bid to homogenise India are posing a threat to all minorities – women, dalits, and all linguistic, cultural and religious minorities.”

The statement said that “Conversions of a religious nature are an exercise of one’s free will and one’s constitutional/fundamental rights and freedom of conscience and of religion. Ghar Wapsi is a political process, carried out by the powerful exponents of religious nationalism – much against the principle of secularism.”

The bishops asked for “assurance from the Government that we are protected and secure and safe in our motherland”. They called on Modi to “urgently intervene and take appropriate action to stop incidents that pose a big threat to the unity of this secular nation”.

A planned mass Christmas Day conversion ceremony in India’s Uttar Pradesh state was banned by the state’s police force.

Organised by an offshoot of the nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) group, the ghar wapsi ceremony for the Muslim-majority city of Aligarh was set to convert at least 1,000 Muslim and 4,000 Christian families from the Valmiki Dalit group, which the group claims to have identified already.

However, according to the Times of India, police spokesman Amit Agarwal said there were public order considerations and announced that the ceremony would not be given permission. “Under no circumstances will we allow the proposed mass conversation programme slated for December 25,” he said, adding: “The so-called ‘ghar waapsi’ programme organised by the Dharam Jagran Samiti can become a law and order issue for the state and irrespective of the finer details of this event it cannot be allowed to be held.”

Source: Christian Today

King Abdullah II of Jordan has praised Pope Francis’ much-debated remarks about the limits to free speech, and insisted that religious beliefs must not be offended.

“King Abdullah made explicit reference to the words expressed by the pope on the fact that freedom of expression is a right, and in some cases even a duty, but at the same time it has limits, and cannot offend the religious beliefs of others. The monarch defined these considerations positive,” said Archbishop Maroun Lahham, patriarchal vicar for Jordan of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, as reported by Fides News Agency on Thursday.

Pope Francis said last week that freedom of speech must be protected, but there should be limits when it comes to causing offense to religions.

His comments reflected on the controversy surrounding French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which suffered a deadly shooting where 12 people were killed earlier in January for publishing drawings of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

“There are so many people who speak badly about religions or other religions, who make fun of them, who make a game out of the religions of others,” Francis said.

To illustrate his point, the Vatican leader jokingly said that he would punch his aid, Alberto Gasparri, if he were to insult his mother.

“They are provocateurs. And what happens to them is what would happen to Dr. Gasparri if he says a curse word against my mother. There is a limit.”

Francis’ comments were criticized by some in the Christian community, including former CNN host Piers Morgan, who said it was difficult to believe that the Roman Catholic Church leader suggested he would punch someone out of retaliation.

British Prime Minister David Cameron added that while he would feel offended if someone insults Jesus, the right to do so is defended by free speech laws.

“If someone says something offensive about Jesus, I might find that offensive, but in a free society I don’t have a right to wreak my vengeance upon them,” Cameron said.

“We have to accept that newspapers, magazines can publish things that are offensive to some as long as it’s within the law.”

King Abdullah has condemned Islamic extremism, and said that people who carry out attacks, such as the one at the news office of Charlie Hebdo, do not represent true Islam. At the same time, he has said that the reputations of Muslims must be defended and protected. The King of Jordan was one of 40 world leaders who marched in Paris to show solidarity against terrorism. President Barack Obama did not join the march in Paris.

After Charlie Hebdo featured a drawing of Muhammad in its first edition after the terror attack, King Abdullah slammed the decision as “an insult to the feelings of Muslims everywhere.”

It was an “irresponsible, reckless and thoughtless act,” he added, and said that one of the fundamental principles of freedom of expression was “respect for religions instead of deliberate insults.”

Other political leaders from Muslim nations have echoed these sentiments, including Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. He said following the Paris attacks that drawings of Muhammad would not be tolerated in his country.

“Freedom of the press does not mean freedom to insult,” Davutoglu said, though he clarified that he condemns terrorism.

“We do not allow any insult to the prophet in this country,” he added. “As the government, we cannot put side-by-side the freedom of press and the lowness to insult.”

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, born the year the first motorcar bumped through the dusty streets of Riyadh, left a modernizing legacy of cautious social and economic reform.

King Abdullah, thought to have been born in 1924, had ruled Saudi Arabia as king since 2006, but had run the country as de facto regent for a decade before that. State television reported early on Friday that King Abdullahhad died.

After outliving two designated heirs, his younger half brothers Sultan and Nayef, Abdullah is succeeded by Crown Prince Salman.

The new king is thought likely to persevere with Abdullah’s efforts over nearly two decades to nudge powerful conservative clerics to accept cautious changes aimed at reconciling Islamic tradition with the needs of a modern economy.

Plain-spoken and avuncular, King Abdullah was born in the court of his father King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud in 1924, according to the Saudi embassy in Washington. The capital Riyadh was at that time a small oasis town ringed by mud-brick walls at the center of an impoverished but rapidly growing kingdom.

By the time he became de facto regent in 1995 when his predecessor King Fahd had a stroke, he was known to foreign diplomats as devout and conservative with strong ties to the kingdom’s Bedouin tribes.

That reputation was soon blown away by the then-crown prince’s reforming zeal as he tried to curb the indulgent habits of his large ruling family and address the alarming problem of youth unemployment by liberalizing the economy to stimulate private sector growth.

However, his response to the Arab spring – a domestic security crackdown, populist economic measures and a hawkish foreign policy – disappointed some liberal Saudis.

After the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi, and an al Qaeda bombing campaign against Westerners inside the kingdom, he took on the conservative clergy who had promulgated an intolerant Islamist message in schools and mosques.

“The state is proceeding, with the help of God, in its gradual and studied course of reform,” he said, vowing to ignore both conservatives calling for “stagnation and immobility” and liberals seeking a “leap into darkness and reckless adventure”.

The reforms were slow and only partly successful, but they skewed the dynamic of Saudi policy toward gradual change and made King Abdullah a popular leader among an increasingly young population where 60 per cent of Saudis are under the age of 30.

Abdullah left the kingdom’s political system largely untouched, however.

Apart from introducing elections for town councils that hold little real power, his only major political reform was to set up a council of the ruling family to make the royal succession more orderly.

ARAB UPRISINGS

King Abdullah was staunchly opposed to the pro-democracy protests in neighbouring countries during the Arab Spring, reflecting Saudi concerns that the fall of old allies might create opportunities for regional rival Iran and al Qaeda.

His order to spend $110 billion on social benefits, new housing and new jobs helped to avert any significant pro-democracy unrest in Saudi Arabia.

In recent years activists who have demanded change through petitions ended up in jail, and political parties and public demonstrations are banned.

Yet even among those Saudis who called for a “day of rage” to protest against the lack of democracy, the king appeared to remain popular. Critics of the ruling family said that was because of his government’s lavish spending during his reign, a period of historically high oil revenue.

In a ruling family known for lavish excesses, his fondness for retreats at his desert camp distinguished him from Saudi princes who prefer to spend summers in Mediterranean palaces.

One of his first acts as king was to rein in spending on the royal family, demanding princes start paying for phone bills and air tickets rather than treating state bodies as a personal valet service.

His efforts to overcome a stutter, supposedly acquired after he was punished as a child, have further cemented his image as a man of the people.

When he visited Saudis living in slum-like conditions shortly after becoming king, he was applauded for a first public recognition by the state that poverty existed.

King Abdullah also aimed to improve the position of women in his ultra-conservative country, trying to offer them better education and employment prospects and saying they will be allowed to take part in municipal elections in 2015.

He said women would be selected as members of the next Shoura Council, the appointed body that advises the government on new laws.

Women are still barred from driving and must seek the approval of a male “guardian” to work, travel abroad, open a bank account or undergo surgery in some cases.

In recent years, the king’s foreign policy was increasingly focused on efforts to contain what the Sunni monarchy sees as the rising influence of Shi’ite Muslim power Iran across the Middle East.

That policy reached its high point in March 2011 when Saudi Arabia sent troops to Bahrain to support the island’s Sunni Muslim monarchy against an uprising by the Shi’ite majority.

It was an unpopular decision among Saudi Arabia’s own Shi’ite minority, but many of the sect’s leaders in the kingdom said that King Abdullah did more than his predecessors to reduce discrimination.

Riyadh feared that the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 had already altered the regional balance of power, giving Iran more sway from Beirut to Baghdad.

Those concerns were underpinned by Iran’s nuclear program, which the West suspects is aimed at making nuclear weapons.

In a 2009 diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, King Abdullah was quoted repeatedly as urging the United States to “cut off the head of the snake” by attacking Iran.

Source: Christian Today