The Catholic Church on Tuesday reiterated it does not forcibly convert people to Christianity.
“Conversion has to come from within,” said Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Archbishop of Bombay.
Addressing the media on the eve of the general body meeting of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) here, Cardinal Gracias, the president of the CBCI, said, “The Catholic Church is against forceful conversion, and it has the greatest respect for the personal laws of each community.”
Responding to queries on the issue of alleged forced conversions by Catholic priests in Jammu and Kashmir, the archbishop said the CBCI would seek a detailed report from the bishop concerned.
Expressing concern at the decreasing number of candidates joining the Catholic priesthood, Archbishop Gracias and his Bangalore counterpart Bernard Moras pointed that the most important factor for the trend was the increasing number of nuclear families.
“Moreover, the world is filled with materialism, and there are added opportunities to earn a livelihood. This has definitely hampered our services,” said Moras.
Gracias said despite such “precarious situations,” the Church was going strong with a number of priests still serving her and the people.
“But this can be definitely a cause for worry, if not addressed; it can lead to a huge problem for the Church,” he admitted.
The CBCI president said the biggest concern of the Church in India was the drastically falling number of priestly candidates from Kerala.
On whether the minority Christians were lobbying for more political recognition, Moras said he had already made a representation to the State government seeking appointment of more Christians as chairpersons of at least three to five per cent of the innumerable statutory bodies.
The bishops admitted that since Christians were “politically insignificant”, the Centre and the states had shown lack of political will in providing more recognition to them in the administrative and political setup.
“We (Catholics) have gone places with our education and health services, where even the governments do not dare to go. We have become the option of the poor and downtrodden.
And yet, there is a lack of recognition for Christians in bureaucratic and political spheres,” Moras said.
The CBCI meeting, to be held in Bangalore from February 1 to 8, will have the theme as ‘Church’s role for a better India.’
The bishops will discuss the topic in depth, which they say is of great importance for the Church in India.
They will also deliberate on how the Church can continue to play an important role in nation building.
Cardinal Peter Turkson, president, Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Rome, Dr Josef Sayer, Director of Miseror, Germany, Navin Chawla, former Chief Election Commissioner of India, and T K Oommen, former professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, will present papers on various issues.