Goa Archbishop tells priests: No remarks on other religions

PANAJI: A day after chief minister Pramod Sawant warned religious heads and priests of strict action for creating communal disharmony in Goa by their utterances against other religions, archbishop of Goa and Daman Filipe Neri Cardinal Ferrao on Saturday expressed “distress” and “deep regret” over the recent statements by priests.
Saying that “appropriate action” has been taken against the priests, he also “sternly warned them to avoid such utterances in the future”.
In a statement to clarify the Church’s stand on other religions after a video of a Goan priest speaking at Velankanni in Tamil Nadu went viral, Ferrao said the recent pronouncements by some members of the Church have gone against the authentic spirit of inter-religious dialogue and reciprocal respect.
“India is blessed with a confluence of different religions, languages and cultures. This enriching diversity constitutes the very identity of our nation and every citizen has the sacred duty to value and respect others’ cultural heritage and religious integrity. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam is a value that is embedded in our ethos,” Ferrao said.
“It is distressing to note that certain expressions used recently in public by some members of the Catholic Church may have hurt the religious sentiments of people of other religious traditions,” he said.
“We exhort the Catholic community to abide by the teachings of the Church and avoid saying or doing anything that could hurt the religious feelings of others. May God bless our country,” Ferrao said.
According to the teachings of the Church, Catholics are called to acknowledge, preserve, and promote the spiritual and moral truths found in the social life and culture of other religious traditions (Vatican II’s Declaration on the Relationship with other Religions, 28 October, 1965), the statement said.
It added that the Church’s Apostolate of Inter-Religious Dialogue is precisely meant to foster this.
“Pope Francis has reiterated the Church’s commitment to promote religious harmony and has cautioned against using religions to incite hatred, violence, extremism and blind fanaticism, and to refrain from using God’s name to justify acts of violence, injustice and oppression, which degrade the dignity of human life (Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together, 5 February, 2019),” the statement further added.