Author: Balbir K. Punj
Publication: Asian Age
Date: April 12, 2005
There was something puzzling about
the Indian government's decision to declare a three-day state mourning
for Pope John Paul II, Karol Jozef Wojtyla. Did it try to appear more Christian
than Christians, or more "secular" than the rest? I am all for showing
respect to the dead, irrespective of their creed, faith or colour. However,
the Indian government's decision raises some interesting questions. Did
it declare a state mourning because the Pope was a head of state?
Does the death of a sovereign of
an artificial state of less than 1,000 people deserve it? Vatican is a
"state" whose head, the Pope, is elected by an electoral college consisting
of 117 voting cardinals - all foreigners! Prince Rainier III, the monarch
of Monaco, a stamp size principality but substantially bigger than the
Vatican and commercially more important, died within a week of the Pope's
death. He was Europe's longest ruling monarch, but was there any mourning
in India?
And if the gesture was to the head
of a billion strong Christian sect, with global presence, then can a "secular
state" differentiate between one religion and another? Should it not show
similar gestures on the demise of heads of other persuasions in India and
abroad? A few years ago, when the paramacharya of Kanchi, in whom many
saw a "living God," died, no such gesture was shown. Isn't our "secularism"
skewed?
In fact, an embarrassing situation
was created when the South Block realised that the Prime Minister of Uzbekistan
was due to start his visit to India from April 6, the third day of the
mourning. South Block frantically sought a two-day postponement of the
visit, but in vain. The Uzbek Prime Minister's diplomatic schedules could
hardly be reorganised. This forced New Delhi to reorganise its diplomatic
schedule by splitting the mourning into two segments - April 4, 5 and April
8, the actual funeral day - to accommodate Mr Islam Karimov.
How did the rest of the world react
to the event? Ireland, a country with 92 per cent Catholic population,
did not declare any state mourning and Catholics were not upset over it
at all. The same was true for Spain, a deeply believing Catholic country.
Leading French left-wingers criticised the government of President Jacques
Chirac for lowering flags on public buildings in tribute to the Pope for
a day, arguing that it was a breach of the country's secular principles.
Protestant countries like the US,
Britain, Sweden, Denmark etc., declared no national mourning. The same
was true for countries like Russia, Greece, Ukraine under the Eastern Orthodox
Church. Of about 100 Christian countries, just a dozen, all insignificant
ones apart from Italy and Canada, declared a mourning. Only Egypt, a predominantly
Muslim country with hardly any Catholics amongst its Coptic Christian minority,
declared a mourning.
All the same, the Pope had left
an indelible mark. History will record him as the first Pope to visit a
Jewish synagogue (Great Synagogue of Rome in 1986) and to pray at the Wailing
Wall in Jerusalem (March 2000). He also became the first Pope to step inside
a mosque when he visited the famous Umayyad mosque in Damascus (May 2001).
He tendered an apology to the Jews for the Holocaust and to the Muslims
for the medieval era crusades.
But alas, he was the same Pope who
during his visit to New Delhi between November 5 and 8, 1999, declared
that Asia should be evangelised in the third millennium like Europe and
the two Americas in the first and second millennium respectively. This
certainly was not God's protocol. It was surely an affront to India's pluralistic
traditions. The then archbishop of Delhi, Alan de Lastic, dismissed a VHP
demand for an apology by the Church for its monstrous Court of Inquisition
in Goa in the 15th century under St. Xavier.
The VHP's demand for an apology
was not unreasonable. Christianity came to India with Apostle Thomas within
decades of the crucifixion and co-existed with other faiths peacefully
in the pluralistic Indian ethos. However, this changed with the arrival
of Francis Xavier, the first missionary of the new Society of Jesus formed
to support the authority of the Pope, in Goa in 1542. In Ambedkar's words
(Writings and Speeches Vol. 5), "The inquisitors of Goa discovered that
they were heretics and like a wolf in the fold, down came the delegates
of the Pope upon the Syrian Churches." Describing the role of Don Alexis
de Menezes the Archbishop of Goa, Dr Ambedkar says, "It was his mission
less to make new converts than to reduce old ones to subjection; and he
flung himself into the work of persecution with an amount of zeal and heroism
that must have greatly endeared him to Rome."
One of the highly appealing aspects
of Pope John Paul II was his political role. He furtively built up, with
Western support, the Solidarity movement in Poland which caused a domino
effect in the collapse of the Communist bloc. He established, in 1993,
Vatican's diplomatic relations with Israel that were long overdue.
"Although a Pope," says the Newsweek
"is by definition the chief teacher, pastor, and administrator of the Roman
Catholic Church, John Paul II saw himself primarily as an evangelist. From
his first appearance on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, he proclaimed
to a worldwide audience that 'Christ, Christ is the answer' " (Newsweek
April 11-18, 2005 p. 23).
Behind the veneer of his pop-savvy
liberalism (the Pope had actually featured in a pop album), who led Vatican
into the Internet era, he was essentially a revivalist.
He "was a stern disciplinarian bent
on curbing what he saw as a dangerous leftward drift in Catholic theology
and practice" (Newsweek). He reversed many of the objectives of the Second
Vatican Council (1962-1965), the most ambitious reform programme in the
Catholic Church convened by the most significant Pope of the 20th century,
John XXIII (1958-1963). John Paul II's immediate predecessor, John Paul
I, who died (or was he killed?) within 33 days of being in office, had
espoused those reforms.
It remains a mystery how his immediate
predecessor Pope John Paul I, a promisingly progressive ecclesiastic, died
within 33 days of being in office. He is said to have died due to a cardiac
arrest resulting from an overdose of tranquillisers. No autopsy was ever
done. It has been long suspected that he had been assassinated for his
liberal agenda. David Yallop in his book In God's Name (1984) claimed that
the precise circumstances attending the discovery of the body of John Paul
I "eloquently demonstrate that the Vatican practised a disinformation campaign."
The Vatican told one lie after another: "Lies about little things, lies
about big things. All these lies had but one purpose: to disguise the fact
that Albino Luciani, Pope John Paul I, had been assassinated." Pope Luciani
"received the palm of martyrdom because of his convictions."
During Pope John Paul II's tenure,
the religo-fascist Mafia, Opus Dei got its grip on the Vatican. Opus Dei,
in Spanish meaning "God's Work," is a highly controversial organisation
that holds extremely bigoted views and is dedicated to expanding the Catholic
grip on international media. Josemaria Escriva de Belaguer ý Albes,
the founder of Opus Dei was elevated to sainthood by John Paul II.
John Paul II's views on divorce,
artificial birth control, abortion were regressive and out of sync with
the AIDS-era. Had a Hindu dharmaguru been professing such views, he would
have been dubbed a saffron lunatic. His successor will have to grapple
with many issues this Pope was not even ready to discuss. Islamic fundamentalism,
emergence of China and India as major players, paedophilia in the Church
are a few of these issues.
Balbir K. Punj is a Rajya Sabha
MP and convener of the BJP's Think Tank.
