Pope: 'Convert all Hindus'
Hinduism Today - Feb' 2000
http://www.hinduism-today.com/2000/2/

The pope really did Hindus a favor with his November visit to India. He united Hindus and Buddhists in opposition to conversion, he put Indian Christians in India on the defensive (especially Catholics), and he galvanized the world press in sympathy for Hinduism, giving rise to some clear explanations in the media as to why missionaries are held in suspect by Hindus. CNN/Time said the pope's conversion call was "appalling manners."

The visit went well enough until the end, when the pope officially closed the three-year Asian Synod of Bishops, one of several convened by the church internationally according to region. He issued the "Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Asia of the Holy Father John Paul II to The Bishops, Priests and Deacons, Men and Women in the Consecrated Life and All the Lay Faithful on Jesus Christ the Saviour and His Mission of Love and Service in Asia." You can find the full text at:

 http://seraphin.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_exhortations/ documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_06111999_ ecclesia-in-asia_en.html 

--just don't make any typing mistakes [excerpts below tell the story]. The language is much more sophisticated, but the message is the same as the Baptists' Diwali pamphlet [see January, 2000 issue]: There is one true religion (ours); all others are false, lesser, incomplete; we are divinely ordered to convert non-Christians; etc., etc.

The declaration provided unexpected fodder for a previously scheduled meeting of Hindus and Buddhists at Lumbini, Nepal (the birthplace of Buddha). Speaker after speaker denounced the pope's call for his bishops to make ever greater efforts to spread Christianity in Asia. They called it "a war against Hindus and Buddhists" and "a spiritual crime." One Hindu leader from Nepal admitted, "Such a statement was not expected from the pope. It is timely that we Hindus and Buddhists have come together to save our peaceful civilization from the aggressive threat of conversion."

Asiaweek magazine, out of Hong Kong, summed up the matter in an editorial, "The pope's message threatens to alienate liberal Indians who previously dismissed the warnings of Hindu chauvinists as fanatical paranoia. But the pope's statements make clear the Vatican's expansionist agenda. And they lend credence to the longstanding complaint that Christianity's many good works in India are meant to give it a foothold on the nation's soul."
 

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