Category: Culture

Indians see religious tolerance as the central plank of their national identity but stick to their own religious group when it comes to making friends or getting married, says a new Pew survey. The survey report released on July 28 was based on nearly 30,000 face-to-face interviews with adults conducted in 17 languages between late 2019 and early 2020 before Covid-19 struck. Indians do not see any contradiction in their preference to “live together, separately,” the report said. “Indeed, many take both positions, saying it is important to be tolerant of others and expressing a desire to limit personal connections across religious lines,” it said.

In other words, unlike people in some countries aspiring to create a “melting pot” of different religious identities, Indians seem to prefer a country more like a patchwork fabric, with clear lines between groups. The country of 1.4 billion people is on its way to becoming the most populous in the world and is home to diverse as well as devout people including most of the world’s Hindus, Jains and Sikhs. India houses the world’s largest Muslim population of some 200 million besides having about 24 million Christians and 8 million Buddhists.

Most Indians share some common values and beliefs across religious lines like karma, Sufism or respecting elders, which is considered very important to their faiths. The survey also found Indians tend to see religious ceremonies for the three rites of passage at birth (or infancy), marriage and death as highly important. “For example, the vast majority of Muslims (92 percent), Christians (86 percent) and Hindus (85 percent) say it is very important to have a religious burial or cremation for their loved ones.” And yet members of major religious communities also tend to see themselves as very different from others.

“This perception of difference is reflected in traditions and habits that maintain the separation of India’s religious groups. For example, marriages across religious lines — and religious conversions — are exceedingly rare,” the report noted. Many Indians even prefer to keep people of certain religions out of their neighborhoods or villages, though few would go so far as to make their preferences public. “For example, many Hindus (45 percent) say they are fine with having neighbors of all other religions — be they Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist or Jain — but an identical share (45 percent) say they would not be willing to accept followers of at least one of these groups, including more than one in three Hindus (36 percent) who do not want a Muslim as a neighbor,” the report stated.

The survey also revealed that the majority of Hindus say it is very important to be Hindu and being able to speak Hindi to be “truly” Indian, and that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s appeal was greater among such Hindus. “In the 2019 national elections, 60 percent of Hindu voters who think it is very important to be Hindu and to speak Hindi to be truly Indian cast their vote for the BJP, compared with only a third among Hindu voters who feel less strongly about both these aspects of national identity,” the report said. But these sentiments were found to be considered common among Hindus in the largely Hindi-speaking northern and central regions of the country, where roughly half of all Hindu voters fall into this category, compared with just 5 percent in the south.

Religion is not the only fault line in Indian society. In some regions of the country, significant shares of people perceive widespread, caste-based discrimination.

The survey findings further suggest that for many Hindus, there is no contradiction between valuing religious diversity and feeling that Hindus are somehow more authentically Indian than fellow citizens who follow other religions. But 95 percent of Muslims, India’s largest minority, say they are very proud to be Indian and express great enthusiasm for Indian culture, most of them agreeing (85 percent) with the statement that “Indian people are not perfect, but Indian culture is superior to others.”

“Most Muslims across the country (65 percent), along with an identical share of Hindus (65 percent), see communal violence as a very big national problem,” the report said. “Religion is not the only fault line in Indian society. In some regions of the country, significant shares of people perceive widespread, caste-based discrimination,” the report said while noting that caste-based discrimination, as well as the government’s efforts to compensate for past discrimination, are politically charged topics in India. Religious conversion has had a minimal impact on the overall size of India’s religious groups.

For example, according to the survey, 82 percent of Indians say they were raised Hindu, and a nearly identical share say they are currently Hindu, “showing no net losses for the group through conversion to other religions. Other groups display similar levels of stability.” Changes in India’s religious landscape over time were largely a result of differences in fertility rates among religious groups, not conversion. “For Christians, however, there are some net gains from conversion: 0.4 percent of survey respondents are former Hindus who now identify as Christian, while 0.1 percent are former Christians,” the report noted.

India’s massive population is diverse as well as devout. Not only do most of the world’s Hindus, Jains and Sikhs live in India, but it also is home to one of the world’s largest Muslim populations and to millions of Christians and Buddhists. A new Pew Research Center report, based on a face-to-face survey of 29,999 Indian adults fielded between late 2019 and early 2020 – before the COVID-19 pandemic – takes a closer look at religious identity, nationalism and tolerance in Indian society. The survey was conducted by local interviewers in 17 languages and covered nearly all of India’s states and union territories. Here are key findings from the report.

Indians value religious tolerance, though they also live religiously segregated lives. Across the country, most people (84%) say that to be “truly Indian,” it is very important to respect all religions. Indians also are united in the view that respecting other religions is a very important part of what it means to be a member of their own religious community (80%). People in all six major religious groups overwhelmingly say they are very free to practice their faiths, and most say that people of other faiths also are very free to practice their own religion.

But Indians’ commitment to tolerance is accompanied by a strong preference for keeping religious communities segregated. For example, Indians generally say they do not have much in common with members of other religious groups, and large majorities in the six major groups say their close friends come mainly or entirely from their own religious community. That’s true not only for 86% of India’s large Hindu population, but also for smaller groups such as Sikhs (80%) and Jains (72%). Moreover, roughly two-thirds of Hindus say it is very important to stop Hindu women (67%) or Hindu men (65%) from marrying into other religious communities. Even larger shares of Muslims oppose interreligious marriage: 80% say it is very important to stop Muslim women from marrying outside their religion, and 76% say it is very important to stop Muslim men from doing so.

For many Hindus, national identity, religion and language are closely connected. Nearly two-thirds of Hindus (64%) say it is very important to be Hindu to be truly Indian. Among Hindus who say it is very important to be Hindu to be truly Indian, 80% also say it is very important to speak Hindi to be truly Indian. Hindus who strongly link Hindu and Indian identities express a keen desire for religious segregation. For instance, 76% of Hindus who say being Hindu is very important to being truly Indian feel it is very important to stop Hindu women from marrying into another religion. By comparison, 52% of Hindus who place less importance on Hinduism’s role in Indian identity hold this view about religious intermarriage.

Moreover, Hindus in the Northern (69%) and Central (83%) parts of the country are much more likely than those in the South (42%) to strongly link Hindu identity with national identity. Together, the Northern and Central regions cover the country’s “Hindi belt,” where Hindi, one of dozens of languages spoken in India, is most prevalent. The vast majority of Hindus in these regions strongly link Indian identity with being able to speak Hindi.

Among Hindus, views of national identity go hand-in-hand with politics. Support for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is greater among Hindus who closely associate their religious identity and the Hindi language with being truly Indian. In the 2019 national elections, 60% of Hindu voters who think it is very important to be Hindu and to speak Hindi to be truly Indian cast their vote for the BJP, compared with 33% among Hindu voters who feel less strongly about both these aspects of national identity. These views also map onto regional support for the BJP, which tends to be much higher in the Northern and Central parts of the country than in the South.

Dietary laws are central to Indians’ religious identity. Hindus traditionally view cows as sacred, and laws on cow slaughter have recently been a flashpoint in India. Nearly three-quarters of Hindus (72%) in India say a person cannot be Hindu if they eat beef. That is larger than the shares of Hindus who say a person cannot be Hindu if they do not believe in God (49%) or never go to a temple (48%). Similarly, three-quarters of Indian Muslims (77%) say that a person cannot be Muslim if they eat pork, which is greater than the share who say a person cannot be Muslim if they do not believe in God (60%) or never attend mosque (61%).

Muslims favor having access to their own religious courts. Since 1937, India’s Muslims have had the option of resolving family and inheritance-related cases in officially recognized Islamic courts, known as dar-ul-qaza. These courts are overseen by religious magistrates known as qazi and operate under Shariah principles, although their decisions are not legally binding. Whether or not Muslims should be allowed to go to their own religious courts remains a hotly debated topic. The survey finds that three-quarters of Muslims (74%) support having access to the existing system of Islamic courts, but followers of other religions are far less likely to support Muslim access to this separate court system.

Muslims are more likely than Hindus to say the 1947 partition establishing the separate states of India and Pakistan harmed Hindu-Muslim relations. More than seven decades after the Indian subcontinent was divided into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan at the end of British colonial rule, the predominant view among Indian Muslims is that the partition of the subcontinent was a bad thing for Hindu-Muslim relations (48%). Only three-in-ten Muslims say it was a good thing. Hindus, however, lean in the opposite direction: 43% of Hindus say Partition was beneficial for Hindu-Muslim relations, while 37% say it was harmful. Sikhs, whose historical homeland of Punjab was split by Partition, are even more likely than Muslims to say the event was bad for Hindu-Muslim relations: Two-thirds of Sikhs (66%) take this position.

India’s caste system, an ancient social hierarchy with origins in Hindu writings, continues to fracture society. Regardless of whether they are Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist or Jain, Indians nearly universally identify with a caste. Members of lower caste groups historically have faced discrimination and unequal economic opportunities, but the survey finds that most people – including most members of lower castes – say there is not a lot of caste discrimination in India. The Indian Constitution prohibits caste-based discrimination, including untouchability, and in recent decades the government has enacted economic advancement policies like reserved seats in universities and government jobs for members of some lower-caste communities.

Still, a large majority of Indians overall (70%) say that most or all of their close friends share their caste. Much as they object to interreligious marriages, a large share of Indians (64%) say it is very important to stop women in their community from marrying into other castes, and about the same share (62%) say it is very important to stop men in their community from marrying into other castes. These figures vary only modestly across different castes.

Religious conversion is rare in India; to the extent that it is occurring, Hindus gain as many people as they lose. Conversion of people belonging to lower castes away from Hinduism to other religions, especially Christianity, has been contentious in India, and some states have laws against proselytism. This survey, though, finds that religious switching has a minimal impact on the size of religious groups. Across India, 98% of survey respondents give the same answer when asked to identify their current religion and, separately, their childhood religion.

An overall pattern of stability in the share of religious groups is accompanied by little net change from movement into, or out of, most religious groups. Among Hindus, for instance, any conversion out of the group is matched by conversion into the group: 0.7% of respondents say they were raised Hindu but now identify as something else, and roughly the same share (0.8%) say they were not raised Hindu but now identify as Hindu. For Christians, however, there are some net gains from conversion: 0.4% of survey respondents are former Hindus who now identify as Christian, while 0.1% were raised Christian but have since left Christianity.

Most Indians believe in God and say religion is very important in their lives. Nearly all Indians say they believe in God (97%), and roughly 80% of people in most religious groups say they are absolutely certain that God exists. The main exception is Buddhists, one-third of whom say they do not believe in God. (Belief in God is not central to Buddhist teachings.)

Indians do not always agree about the nature of God: Most Hindus say there is one God with many manifestations, while Muslims and Christians are more likely to say, simply, “there is only one God.” But across all major faiths, the vast majority of Indians say that religion is very important in their lives, and significant portions of each religious group also pray daily and observe a range of other religious rituals.

India’s religious groups share several religious practices and beliefs. After living side by side for generations, India’s minority groups often engage in practices or hold beliefs that are more closely associated with Hindu traditions than with their own. For instance, many Sikh (29%), Christian (22%) and Muslim (18%) women in India say they wear a bindi – the forehead marking often worn by married women – even though the bindi has Hindu origins. Meanwhile, Muslims in India are just as likely as Hindus to say they believe in karma (77% each), as do 54% of Indian Christians. Some members of the majority Hindu community celebrate Muslim and Christian festivals: 7% of Indian Hindus say they celebrate the Muslim festival of Eid, and 17% celebrate Christmas.

In late-February 1912, a play called Buddha was staged at the Royal Court Theatre in London. This was produced by William Poel, the noted theatre figure best known for his presentations of Shakespeare. The play was adapted for stage by S.C. Bose. It has been speculated that he was Sarat Chandra Bose, the elder brother of Subhas Chandra Bose, and later to become a prominent figure in the Indian freedom movement himself. Sarat Chandra Bose was indeed in London at that time studying law. The evidence, however, is not conclusive.5 Buddha was a significant success. The driving force behind it was KedarNath Das Gupta, who had come to London in 1907 fleeing possible police action against him in Calcutta for having been a revolutionary there. In 1912, Das Gupta would also set up the Indian Art and Dramatic Society, which organized an evening dedicated to the works of Rabindranath Tagore in his presence at the Royal Albert Hall. Tagore would win the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature for his collection of songs called Gitanjali.

Tagore, the poet of Indian nationalism, was India’s pre-eminent cultural and literary personality of the twentieth century. The influence of the Buddha on his poetry and his novels has been much studied and written about. This influence came about in diverse ways. His immediate family was steeped in Buddhist study. In 1859 his father Debendranath Tagore had been to Ceylon and had come back with not just knowledge of but keen interest in the Buddha’s life and his teachings. He wrote Sakya Muni O NirvanTattvai in 1882. Satyendranath Tagore, Rabindranath’s elder brother, who had accompanied their father to Ceylon, wrote Bauddha Dharma in 1901. The BrahmoSamaj, of which the Tagore family was an integral part, had also taken up the study of the Buddha’s teachings. A very early influence regarding the Buddha on Rabindranath Tagore was that of RajendralalaMitra, who has figured in this narrative earlier.

In January 1922, Rabindranath Tagore would visit Bodh Gaya and issue this statement:

I am sure it will be admitted by all Hindus who are true to their own ideals, that it is an intolerable wrong to allow the temple raised on the spot where Lord Buddha attained his enlightenment to remain under the control of a rival sect which can neither have the intimate knowledge of or sympathy for the Buddhist religion and its rites of worship. I consider it to be a sacred duty for all individuals believing in freedom and justice this great historical site to the community of people who still reverently carry on that particular current of history in their own living faith.

Rabindranath Tagore had taken The Light of Asia with him when he went to Bodh Gaya. While the imprint of the Buddha is very distinctive in many of his works, the influence of The Light of Asia specifically has been traced in the poem ‘Bidaye’ of KalpanaKavyagrantha. It has apparently never been translated into English before and is being done so for the first time here:

Let me now depart, It’s time to break the bonds. In your blissful sleep, You shudder in dreams of separation. At dawn your vacant eyes, Will search and brim with glistening tears. It’s time to break the bonds. Though Your ruby lips and sad eyes are yet to utter, So many words of endearment. The bird will fly across the seas Leaving the happy nest behind. From across the firmament I hear the call. It’s time to break the bonds.

Tagore’s stance on the Mahabodhi Temple at Buddha Gaya was completely different to the one his Japanese friend and admirer OkakuraKakuzo had taken years earlier. OkakuraKakuzo was an artist who had in 1895 ‘issued a call for a painting competition to represent scenes from the life of the Buddha in a new form’. There was an enthusiastic response and a number of works resulted, but these were ‘dogged by critics’ accusations of inauthenticity’. Okakura must have decided that he had to visit India to get a better sense of ‘historical authenticity’ to depict the life of the Buddha. In addition, he had been persuaded by a wealthy American woman, Josephine MacLeod, to join her on her journey to Calcutta to meet Vivekananda. MacLeod had been Vivekananda’s ardent admirer and benefactor since 1894. Okakura was planning to host another Chicago-like World Parliament of Religions in Japan and hence his visit to the man who had been the most charismatic presence at Chicago in 1893 was most welcome.

OkakuraKakuzo reached Calcutta in early January 1902 and struck an instant rapport with Vivekananda and invited him to Japan. The two were in Buddha Gaya together sometime in the last week of January 1902. Vivekananda had been there sixteen years earlier. On 7 February 1902 Vivekananda told Josephine MacLeod:

We [Okakura and he] have safely reached Benaras . . . I am rather better here than at Buddha Gaya. There was no hitch to our friend [Okakura] being admitted to the chief temple and [allowed to] touch the Sign of Shiva and to worship. The Buddhists, it seems are always admitted

A few weeks later Okakura made a second trip to Buddha Gaya with another Japanese Buddhist priest Tokuno Oda, who had come to Calcutta in April 1901 as Okakura’s emissary to Vivekananda. The two Japanese went to meet the Mahant to negotiate the purchase of land close to the Mahabodhi Temple. On his return to Calcutta, Okakura wrote to the Mahant on 26 April 1902 expressing his desire to ‘erect a rest house [close to the Mahabodhi Temple] for followers of Mahayana Buddhism in Japan’ and his willingness to purchase land at a ‘fair and reasonable price’ for this purpose. He had distanced himself from the ‘representatives of the Hinayana Buddhism of Ceylon, Siam or other places,’ who had been agitating for total Buddhist control over the Mahabodhi Temple. Okakura gave his Calcutta address as ‘c/o Swami Vivekananda, the Math, Belur, Howrah’. Obviously, Vivekananda would have been in the know about Okakura’s proposal, which, as it turned out, was acceptable to the Mahant as well. A few months later, on 4 July 1902, Vivekananda passed away. It is clear that Okakura was deeply influenced by Vivekananda in his views on Buddhism and its relationship with Hinduism which were at variance with Dharmapala’s. Later Okakura would become an important part of Tagore’s orbit for a while.

As for Sister Nivedita, born Margaret Noble, she would visit Bodh Gaya in early October 1904. Her entourage had included twenty men and women, among whom were the scientist Jagdish Chandra Bose and his wife, Rabindranath Tagore and his son, and the historian Jadunath Sarkar. She would write to MacLeod on 15 October 1904 from Rajgir:

We have been a party of 20 spending 4 days at Bodh-Gaya . . . and I think it has been an event in all our lives . . . In the mornings we had tea by 6 and then readings ‘Light of Asia’ Web of Indian Life [Nivedita’s own book] etc, and talks. All gathered together in the great verandeh. Our Mahant is like a King. Evenings ‘we went out after tea’ to the Temple and Tree …

Rabindranath Tagore was not the only member of the distinguished Tagore family on whom The Light of Asia would have a marked influence. His nephew Abanindranath Tagore, the first Indian artist to gain international recognition just as his uncle was earning a global name for himself, had painted Buddha and Sujata in 1902. ParthaMitter, the noted historian of Indian art, has written that:

Buddha and Sujata departed from Varma’s historicism [Raja Ravi Varma, who painted mythological figures]. Abanindranath chose an actual historical figure, though the Buddha here was the saviour imagined by the Orientalist Edwin Arnold. His description of the shy maiden who brought the Buddha his first nourishment was the inspiration here.

In Book the Sixth, of The Light of Asia, Arnold describes that transformative moment thus:

So,’thinking him divine,’ Sujata drew

Tremblingly nigh, and kissed the earth and said,

With sweet face bent, “Would that the Holy One

Inhabiting this grove,

Giver of Good,

Merciful unto me his handmaiden,

Vouchsafing now his presence, might accept These our poor gifts of snowy curds, fresh made,

With milk as white as new-carved ivory!”

Today, about a twenty-minute walk east from the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya stands Sujata Stupa or Sujata Ghar that honours this milkmaid who ended the seven years of self-mortification of Siddhartha Gautama paving the way for his enlightenment. (IANS)

Pope Francis has changed church law to explicitly criminalize the sexual abuse of adults by priests who abuse their authority and to say that laypeople who hold church office can be sanctioned for similar sex crimes.

The new provisions, released last week after 14 years of study, were contained in the revised criminal law section of the Vatican’s Code of Canon Law, the in-house legal system that covers the 1.3 billion-strong Catholic Church.It’s the first time church law has officially recognized as criminal the method used by sexual predators to build relationships with their victims to then sexually exploit them.

The most significant changes are contained in two articles, 1395 and 1398, which aim to address major shortcomings in the church’s handling of sexual abuse. The law recognizes that adults, too, can be victimized by priests who abuse their authority, and said that laypeople in church offices can be punished for abusing minors as well as adults.The Vatican also criminalized the “grooming” of minors or vulnerable adults by priests to compel them to engage in pornography. It’s the first time church law has officially recognized as criminal the method used by sexual predators to build relationships with their victims to then sexually exploit them.

The law also removes much of the discretion that had long allowed bishops and religious superiors to ignore or cover up abuse, making clear they can be held responsible for omissions and negligence in failing to properly investigate and sanction errant priests.Ever since the 1983 code was issued, lawyers and bishops have complained it was completely inadequate to deal with the sexual abuse of minors, since it required time-consuming trials. Victims and their advocates, meanwhile, have argued it left too much discretion in the hands of bishops who had an interest in covering up for their priests.

The Vatican issued piecemeal changes over the years to address the problems and loopholes, most significantly requiring all cases to be sent to the Holy See for review and allowing for a more streamlined administrative process to defrock a priest if the evidence against him was overwhelming.More recently, Francis passed new laws to punish bishops and religious superiors who failed to protect their flocks. The new criminal code incorporates those changes and goes beyond them.

According the new law, priests who engage in sexual acts with anyone — not just a minor or someone who lacks the use of reason — can bedefrocked if they used “force, threats or abuse of his authority” to engage in sexual acts.The law doesn’t explicitly define which adults are covered, saying only “one to whom the law recognizes equal protection.”The Vatican has long considered any sexual relations between a priest and an adult as sinful but consensual, believing that adults are able to offer or refuse consent purely by the nature of their age. But amid the #MeToo movement and scandals of seminarians and nuns being sexually abused by their superiors, the Vatican has come to realize that adults can be victimized too if they are in a relationship with a power imbalance.

That dynamic was most clearly recognized in the scandal over ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington. Even though the Vatican knew for years he slept with his seminarians, McCarrick was only put on trial after someone came forward saying he had abused him as a youth. Francis defrocked him in 2019.In a novelty aimed at addressing sex crimes committed by laypeople who hold church offices, such as founders of lay religious movements or even church administrators, the new law says laypeople can be similarly punished if they abuse their authority to engage in sexual crimes.Since these laypeople can’t be defrocked, penalties include losing their jobs, paying fines or being removed from their communities.

The need for such a provision was made clear in the scandal involving Luis Figari, the lay founder of the Peru-based conservative group SodalitiumChristianae Vitae, a conservative movement that has 20,000 members and chapters throughout South America and the U.S.An independent investigation concluded he was a paranoid narcissist obsessed with sex and watching his underlings endure pain and humiliation. But the Vatican dithered for years on how to sanction him, ultimately deciding to remove him from Peru and isolate him from the community. The new law takes effect on Dec. 8.

The students of Saudi Arabia will now learn the details of Hindu epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata under the new curriculum. As part of Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s new vision for the education sector in Saudi Arabia, Vision 2030, the history and culture of other countries are being studied to provide students with more knowledge about different cultures.

As part of this, it is reported that students will be taught Ramayana and Mahabharata. It is reported that the study will focus on globally significant Indian cultures such as yoga and Ayurveda, to expand the students’ cultural knowledge and exposure.

Apart from the introduction of Ramayana and Mahabharata in the curriculum of Saudi Arabian students, the English language has been made mandatory in the new Vision 2030.

Saudi’s Vision 2030 explained

To dismiss all the confusion regarding the changes in the education sector, Saudi users’ vision has been clarified by sharing a screenshot by a Twitter user named Nouf-al-Marwai.

He wrote, “Saudi Arabia’s new vision-2030 and syllabus will help build a future that is inclusive, liberal, and tolerant. “The Twitter user also shared a screenshot of his son’s syllabus, which contained a wide array of cultures.

“The screenshot of my son’s school exam today in the book of social studies includes concepts and history of Hinduism, Buddhism, Ramayana, Karma, Mahabharata, and Dharma. I enjoyed helping her study,” he added in his tweet.

At one of the largest gatherings of people in the world continues in the northern Indian city, Haridwar, almost 3 million Hindu pilgrims bathed in the Ganges River as part of this year’s Kumbh Mela festival, raising concerns that the festival could become a super spreader event.

One of the largest gatherings of people in the world continues in the northern Indian city, Haridwar amid a sharp rise in coronavirus cases and a weakening supply of vaccines. Almost 3 million Hindu pilgrims have bathed in the Ganges River as part of this year’s Kumbh Mela festival, raising concerns that the festival could become a super spreader event. On Monday, the festival’s second-holiest day, India’s Health Ministry reported nearly 170,000 new coronavirus infections. India’s total caseload has become the second-highest in the world after the United States.

On the banks of the Ganges, Hindu prayer music is interrupted by whistles from police, trying unsuccessfully to enforce social distancing rules, as millions of devotees thronged the banks of the Ganges, a river many Hindus consider holy, to participate in the months-long ‘Kumbh Mela’ or pitcher festival.

Hindus believe the river is holy and bathing in it will cleanse them of their sins and bring salvation. The Kumbh Mela takes place every 12 years and the venue is chosen from amongst four cities, including Allahabad, Haridwar, Nasik and Ujjain. Haridwar’s turn to host the gathering came amid a sharp rise in the number of coronavirus infections, with India consistently reporting more than 100,000 cases daily in the past few weeks.

With a spike in new covid cases, India accounts for one in six of all new infections globally, although the figure is still well below the U.S. peak of nearly 300,000 new cases on Jan. 8. As India’s second wave of infections builds, with fewer than 4% estimated to have been vaccinated among a population of 1.4 billion, experts say the situation could have a long way to go before it starts getting better.
“After cases declined in January-February, we were very comfortable,” said a panel of high court judges in the western state of Gujarat, calling on authorities to take urgent steps to rein in the outbreak. “Almost everyone forgot that there was ever corona,” added the panel, headed by Chief Justice Vikram Nath.

A senior police official told ANI news agency that it was very difficult to ensure social distancing on the river banks.
“We are continuously appealing to people to follow Covid-appropriate behaviour. But due to the huge crowd, it is practically not possible to issue challans [fines],” inspector general of police Sanjay Gunjyal said.

He said that a “stampede-like situation” could arise if the police tried to enforce social distancing on the river banks.
Officials said by Monday evening more than 3.1 million devotees had bathed in the river, with many more expected to follow suit. Monday – Somvati Amavasya – marks the biggest bathing day during the two-month-long festival.

The government had earlier said that only people with Covid negative reports would be allowed at the festival and strict measures like social distancing would be followed. But a number of people, including top saints, have already tested positive.Even as the virus surges to its worst level, daily life remains unaffected in most parts of the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other politicians have addressed massive campaign rallies in several states holding local elections. When Muslim scholars held a congregation in New Delhi last year, before India’s lockdown, politicians and many from India’s Hindu majority blamed Muslims for spreading the coronavirus.

Last month, when reporters asked Uttarakhand’s chief minister about COVID-19 concerns ahead of the Hindu Kumbh Mela festival, he said no one would be stopped from coming because of the pandemic. He said, “Pilgrims’ faith will overcome the fear of the virus.”

While the quest to explain how Christ can be both fully human and fully divine enjoys a long, fascinating history, Jc Beall, the O’Neill Family Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, believes that the quest should end.

Newswise — While the quest to explain how Christ can be both fully human and fully divine enjoys a long, fascinating history, Jc Beall, the O’Neill Family Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, believes that the quest should end.

Beall is an expert in logic, the philosophy of logic and especially nonstandard (or “deviant”) logic, and his most recent work explores longstanding problems in philosophy of religion.

In his newest research, “The Contradictory Christ,” Beall argues that instead of trying to get around the apparent contradiction of the incarnation, Christian thinkers should accept what many thinkers have long charged: at the very crux of the Christian theory lies a contradiction.

“I believe that Christ is a contradictory being, and that all Christian thinkers should accept that Christ is a being of whom some claims are both true and false,” Beall said.

According to Beall, orthodox work on the incarnation begins with the standard doctrine that Christ is fully divine and fully human — having all properties that are essential to God but also all properties that are essential to being human, including all the essential limitations of being human. Philosophers and theologians have long struggled with this tension and, in a quest for logical consistency, have articulated theories that attempt to dissolve the apparent contradiction.

“The history of heresies, charitably interpreted, is really the history of Christians trying to get away from the contradiction of Christ,” Beall said. “They flee the contradiction because of an unfounded dogmatism about logic that requires rejecting contradictions, but in so doing, they are actually losing the radical truth of God incarnate.”

Beall said that logic-respecting Christians confront a choice: either stick with the mainstream story about logic and thereby lose a distinctive truth of Christian theology, or reject the mainstream story about logic and accept that the truth of Christ involves contradiction.

“Getting closer to a true account of Christ means dialing down the standard theory of logic, which tells us that every statement about the world is either true or false, and also that no statement about the world is both true and false,” he said.

The Roman Catholic Church cannot bless same-sex marriages, no matter how stable or positive the couples’ relationships are, the Vatican said this week. The message, approved by Pope Francis, came in response to questions about whether the church should reflect the increasing social and legal acceptance of same-sex unions.

“Does the Church have the power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex?” the question asked. “Negative,” replied the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is responsible for defending Catholic doctrine. The church says its answer regarding same-sex couples “declares illicit any form of blessing that tends to acknowledge their unions as such.”

The message underlines the church’s insistence that marriage should be limited to a union between a man and a woman, saying that same-sex unions involve “sexual activity outside of marriage.” In the Vatican’s view, same-sex marriages are not part of God’s plan for families and raising children.

“The presence in such relationships of positive elements, which are in themselves to be valued and appreciated, cannot justify these relationships and render them legitimate objects of an ecclesial blessing,” the statement said.

Bestowing a blessing on a same-sex couple’s relationship would also be an “imitation” of the nuptial blessing, the Vatican said. God, the Vatican said, “does not and cannot bless sin.”

Because of the Vatican’s stance on marriage, critics have accused the church of treating LGBTQ people as lesser members of its congregation. In an apparent response to those concerns, the Vatican said on Monday that its declaration is not meant to be “unjust discrimination.”

It called on Catholics “to welcome with respect and sensitivity persons with homosexual inclinations.”

The Vatican also said that its refusal to give religious approval to same-sex marriage does not preclude giving blessings to homosexual people. But it added that the church “does not have, and cannot have,” the power to bless same-sex relationships.

The message cited Francis’ own words from 2016, when he wrote, “there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.”

That line comes from “Amoris Laetitia” (The Joy of Love), the papal treatise on families that was widely seen as Pope Francis’ move to make the Catholic Church more inclusive. When it was published, the document set off disagreements within the church hierarchy over whether Catholics who have been divorced and remarried should receive sacraments.

Pope Francis has been viewed with cautious optimism by LGBTQ groups because of remarks like his statement, widely published in 2020, that homosexuals are “part of the family” and that same-sex and other nontraditional couples need a “civil union law.” But rights advocates also noted that the pope’s remarks didn’t promise a change within the church, saying the comment seemed to reflect his own opinions, rather than a shift in Catholic doctrine.

On the auspicious hour of 10 AM in the spring morning of 20 Falgun of the Bengali year 1427, Friday March 5, 2021, a celebration began among the evergreen beauty of rural interior of Barisal district, Bangladesh. The event of re-dedication puja service of Sri Bishnu was conducted by monk Rev. Swami Jiban Maharaj, monk Rev. Swami Dayamoy Sadhu, pujarini (priestess) Mrs. Karmakar and by local village residents. Sri Bishnu or Sri Vishnu is the Lord of Creation. It seems that from the late First Millennia to mid-Second Millennia it became a tradition in Bengal in India to dedicate villages to Lord Bishnu.

As deltaic and plains Bengal is devoid of mountains and stones, the deities must either have been built in mountainous northern or northeastern India and transported to Bengal, or the stones and artisans were brought in Bengal via Ganga or Brahmaputra Rivers, much like the stone structures in ancient Egyptian civilization based on transportation of stones via Nile River. The black granite statue of Sri Bishnu (Vishnu) Murti (Deity) was dedicated by Ghosh-Dastidar Family ancestors in the 15^th Century at Lakhsmankathi Village of Barisal District, in coastal east Bengal in India, now Bangladesh. The shrine was established in the 15^th Century by the “Ghosh-Dastidar Family” when they established the village. The murti (statue) was erected in the Sri Bishnu Bari Mandir (Temple). Incidentally, the term Dastidar, a word of Persian origin, was given by the non-native Muslim ruler of Bengal region of India as an honorific title by foreign Islamic rulers who used Persian as the official language during their rule from the 14^th Century. They depended on the family for governing the region. Islamic rulers were a small non-native minority ruling over a vast non-Muslim population.

Many locals called this Puno-Pratistha Re-dedication Ceremony as an unparalleled and ground breaking event since the Partition of India and Partition of Bengal in 1947. The temple was repaired in 2019 through 2020, but the celebration of re-dedication was postponed because of Covid crisis. Only after Bangladesh removed restriction on travel, the celebration took place.

The March 5, 2021 celebration started during the auspicious moment according to Hindu calendar, with glorious Surya, the Sun God showed the event with His blessing. Men, women and children were dressed in their best to make the event joyous and celebratory. Vast majority of the people were from poor and oppressed groups in the Muslim-majority nation. After the end of the first puja service, a reading from the Holy Bhagabat Gita was conducted by Monk Dayamoy Sadhu, with a question and answer session. This was followed by a second puja offering and arati – service with lit pradip (lamp) – by Monk Jiban Maharaj, followed by puja by pujarini (priestess) Karmakar.

The service was followed by a music session conducted by monk Jiban Maharaj, joined by attendees, followed by a philosophical homily. Rev. Jiban Maharaj said in his sermon, “I especially thank Baba (Father, Sabyasachi), Ma (Mother, Shefali), Shuvo, Sumedha, Shriya-Lakshmi and Joyeeta Ghosh-Dastidars of America for their dedication to improve the life of all Bangladeshis. I also thank Anirban of Singapore for helping us. I wish them a very long and productive life and of others all over the world. Om Shanti.” At the end of puja-arati prayer-lite-lamp service keynote speech was given by Mr. Swapan Kumar Mondol, a local luminary, followed by congratulatory addresses by other individuals. At the end of the service Prasad, blessed fruits and sweets offered to God, and bhog, the blessed cooked food offered to Lord Bishnu, were distributed to all the attendees, between 100 and 150 guests, both Hindu minority and Muslim majority. This follows a long tradition of joint celebration during peaceful times.

The process of reconstruction of the mandir (temple) began after this writer’s visit in early 2019 when the poor, oppressed villagers requested visitors’ help to repair the structure. In 1987 the new mandir was built by Amitabha Ghosh Dastidar of Kolkata (Calcutta). The original temple structure was destroyed during 1950s pogrom, when terrorists also demolished the other 18^th Century mandir (temple) of Black Mother Kali, called Kali Bari or the Home of Mother Kali.

It is worth mentioning that after partition of India in 1947 into secular India and Islamic Pakistan, today’s Bangladesh became East Pakistan, and immediately began attacks on Hindu minorities, their shrines, ashrams, schools, libraries, homes and businesses. Dastidars, like other Hindus, especially educated families, wanted to stay in their homes, but after successive pogroms they were forced to flee from their homeland becoming homeless refugees in India. Since early 1980s Dastidars have been going back to their homeland regularly, though they were unable to enter their home. They have established many schools and hostels (dormitories) for the poor and the orphaned in Bangladesh, and in the Indian States of West Bengal, Assam and Mizoram, with the help of many Americans – Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, white, black, brown, yellow and of other colors.

I thank Mr. Mithun Biswas of Madaripur, Bangladesh for providing live video coverage through Facebook page. At times live broadcast was difficult because of WI-Fi connection in that remote rural corner of Bangladesh. In 2021 it takes between six to eight hours to cover a distance of 160 to 250 kilometers, from the Bangladesh capital Dhaka to Lakshmankati in the south depending on which ferry one takes to cross either mighty Padma or Meghna Rivers.

We welcome you to visit the shrine. On your way please visit Mahilara Mott, a historic place with a 350-year old shrine included in a book by UNESCO of historic mandirs of Bangladesh. This writer’s effort saved the historic 110 feet tall shrine. Check https://empireslastcasualty.blogspot.com/2019/01/mahilara-gour-nodi-barisal-bangladesh.html. It is just 400 meters north of Lakshmankathi on the main Dhaka-Barisal National Highway. Please email us for direction. If one wants, one can rent a room at Guest House of Madaripur Ashram, in Pathak-kandi neighborhood of Madaripur City for overnight stay, a short distance from both Mahilara and Lakshmankathi villages. One can use various modes of transportation to visit those sites.

If one wants to contact us, please email either at ispad1947@gmail.com or at probini@hotmail.com.  If one wants to donate for our work, please donate via Facebook page of the Indian Subcontinent Partition Documentation Project, or donate via www.ispad1947.org web. Any donation is greatly appreciated.

The solo Indian flag that made an appearance among the vast swathe of Trump supporters storming the Capitol building in Washington D.C. recently, caught the attention of many. It was even more of a surprise when it was revealed that a Malayali Christian named Vinson Palathingal was responsible for it.

However, truth be told, Palathingal is just one of the many Malayali Christians who are fervent advocates of the Christo-racist nationalism represented and championed by Donald Trump and his band of supporters. For those wondering how an exclusivist White supremacist anti-Muslim ideology and rhetoric that underpins Trumpian politics appeals to these migrants and their ilk from the Global South, the answer may be found in the latter’s own social location within the Kerala society in India.

Syrian Christians and Kerala’s caste hierarchy

Beyond the general term Christian, there lies a more nuanced identifier for the community that people like Palathingal hail from – Syrian Christians. A traditionally privileged and landed community, they claim their origin from the proselytisation mission of Jesus Christ’s disciple St. Thomas in the first century CE. There are visible tendencies among the Syrians, who are also called St. Thomas Christians, to go back and revive what they imagine to be their Syriac liturgical tradition.

The most popular myth about their origin is that they hail from Brahmins who were proselytised by St. Thomas. While inquiring into the veracity of these claims is not what I intend to do in this article, I think it is indeed an indication of the “superior” status that they seek to utilise to distinguish themselves from their fellow Christians who are mostly from “lower” castes.

Cambridge historian Susan Bayly, in her book, Saints, Goddesses and Kings, points out that in the pre-colonial era, Syrian Christians were very much incorporated into the savarna sections of the caste hierarchy within the Kerala society. Although the tectonic changes brought into the social organisation of Kerala by the colonialists altered this position, and Syrian Christians switched from being mostly a martial and trading group to one of land-owning agriculturalists, they were still able to retain their traditional privileges.

1. C. Zachariah points out in his book, The Syrian Christians of Kerala: Demographic and Socio-Economic Transition in the 20th Century (2006), that the community is the largest per household landholder in the state. They also lead other prominent groups in terms of housing. They also do relatively well in terms of access to both government jobs and educational institutions. Citing the Kerala Migration Study (1998) conducted by the Centre for Development Studies, Zachariah concludes that “Syrian Christians are the most advanced community in Kerala (p197)” with respect to overall socio-economic indices.

A simplistic application of the category of caste in the case of Syrian Christians might blunt the analytical edge. However, for the purposes of this article, I will stick to the notion of caste, for want of a better terminology, as it is still used as a method of social stratification.

For instance, Syrian Christians practice strict endogamy, which is central to preserving hereditary socio-economic capital. This practice is so strongly adhered to that Syrian denominations that are in communion with the Catholic Church still do not enter into matrimonial relationships with their fellow Latin Catholics who are mostly considered “lower” castes, belonging to fisherman or Dalit communities.

The tropes of ‘love jihad’, halal food, and minority benefits

However, despite being amongst the most privileged in Kerala society, recently, the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church (the largest denomination among the Syrians) kicked up a public frenzy claiming that ‘Christians’ are being systematically discriminated against, by the two mainstream political parties who come to power in Kerala alternatively. The major accusation is that the state governments favour Muslims over Christians, when it comes to resource allocation through minority benefits.

This rhetoric is clearly based on a reductionist understanding of ‘minority’ as a purely numerical category, rather than as one referring to a community that is vulnerable or threatened by the majority power structure. This tendency is also witnessed in the hype over the imagined ‘love jihad’ campaigns by Muslims to ‘snatch’ (Syrian) Christian women, even after central and state law enforcement agencies repeatedly found no evidence to prove the same. Priests and laity leaders constantly issue advisories to parents to protect their daughters from falling for such non-existent ‘love jihad’ traps.

As surprising as it would seem, this has also spilt into campaigns various Syrian Christian groups calling for a boycott of restaurants and shops selling halal food items. The recent decision by Turkish President Erdogan to turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque is portrayed as another instance of a global Muslim scheme against Christians, conveniently hiding the fact that 13th-century crusaders were the first to ransack Hagia Sophia. The Orthodox Patriarch had to run for his life while the marauding Catholics converted Hagia Sofia into a Catholic place of worship.

Just like Vinson Palathingal in the US, there were community groups in Kerala that put up billboards professing their unflinching support for Trump and prayed for his return to power. Moreover, Syrian Christian family WhatsApp groups and social media are teeming with conspiracy theories targeting Muslims. In many of the cases, this communal vitriol is led by Syrian Catholic priests themselves, like Noble Parackal, who is also a popular face on social media. It suffices to say that these conspiracy theories and victim narratives have found legitimacy and a life independent of reality.

Mainstream political parties in Kerala are all wary of this reality, especially with state assembly elections just around the corner. Through various ways, the community has also started publicly positioning BJP as a potential ally and political alternative. On its part, the BJP, which is struggling to establish a foothold in the state with 47% of the population comprising minorities, has been trying to woo Syrian Christians in a major way. The fact also remains that the first and last MP to win for NDA from Kerala was P. C. Thomas from the Syrian Catholic community, in 2004.

Syrian Christians’ appropriation of ‘Christianity’

Among all the various Syrian Christian denominations, why is it that the Syrian Catholic church is expressly, and almost exclusively, the proponent of this anti-Islam campaign? Further, what are the repressed insecurities of the community that has manifested in such a phenomenon?

Most importantly, at a time when Hindu majoritarianism is extending its grip over India, why is it that the Kerala Christian group has chosen to target another fellow minority group, instead of the Hindu nationalists? Studies need to address this deep-seated insecurity of the community to unpack the unconscious and underlying reasons manifesting in the current public outburst of anger aimed at Muslims.

Antagonism towards Muslims is not new and has been a popular, but private, sentiment among the members of the community majorly in the erstwhile central Travancore region. As such, one needs to ask why, suddenly, this made its entry into the public sphere with such fervour. For one, it is clear that ‘love jihad’, the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque, halal food controversy, terrorism etc, have been used instrumentally to plug the local antagonism towards Muslims into the global discourse, adding much-needed legitimacy to the anti-Muslim social imagination. This also helps in rhetorically translating the antagonism in such popularly recognised ‘common sense’ terms that would look normal and legitimate.

‘Entirety of Christianity’

One last and most important facet of this phenomenon I wish to highlight is how the Syrian Christians, championing this narrative, always mobilise the entirety of ‘Christianity’ in their rhetoric. This is contradictory. This calls for critical attention, considering how Syrians have always fervently tried to distinguish themselves from the rest of the Christians in everything else that matters. Their exceptionalism and savarna mindset clearly point to a Christianity-caste nexus that actively facilitates the maintenance of caste privileges.

Even their origin stories, related to the first century CE proselytisation mission of St. Thomas, is itself used to distinguish them from those mostly ‘lower’ caste faithful, who are pejoratively called ‘converted Christians’ referring to their more recent turn to the faith. The extent of this caste distinction and discrimination becomes amply clear while considering the fact that Syrian Catholics, with full approval and encouragement of the clergy, refuse to even marry Latin Catholics.

To avoid appearing explicitly casteist, myths like family ‘cultural differences’ which are pitched as monolithic and hereditary, are cited. Moreover, this caste blinded-ness is also a reason why the self-proclaimed protectors of ‘Christianity’, fighting against a so-called global Muslim conspiracy, choose to ignore the long history of violence inflicted by Hindutva organisations on Dalit and other ‘lower’ caste Christians in other parts of India. As such, it is imperative that we need to make visible the caste violence being furthered by ‘savarna‘ Syrian Christians, as they pitch the fiction of unified Christianity in their rhetoric against Muslims.

Bipin Sebastian is a PhD student at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. He studies discursive formations on religion, caste and secularism in India and can be reached at bipinsebastian@u.northwestern.edu

In this time of COVID-19 and civil unrest in America, happiness often seems increasingly elusive. Yet that may not have to be so, and, in fact, such turmoil can offer opportunities for both personal and professional fulfillment.

That was the theme of an online conversation Saturday night between the Dalai Lama and Professor Arthur C. Brooks of Harvard Business School (HBS) and Harvard Kennedy School (HKS). Speaking from his home in Dharamshala, India, the Dalai Lama, longtime leader of Tibetan Buddhism, spoke with Brooks, HKS professor of the practice of public leadership and HBS professor of management practice, for 90 minutes in a live segment of Brooks’ HBS class called “Leadership and Happiness.” The Dalai Lama answered questions from students about their concerns and their duties in a troubled world.

Connection — even as people are usually now forced to work and study separately — is the key to happiness, he said. “We need a sense of oneness. We are each one of 7 billion human beings.” Occasionally aided by an interpreter, the 85-year-old religious leader stressed that point repeatedly. Especially when faced with global crises such as the pandemic and climate change, he said, people must engage as a global community.

“We can no longer say ‘my nation, my country,’ ” he said. “We should say ‘my planet.’ We have to live on this planet together.”

The potential for happiness is in that connectivity. “Happiness is in the mind,” the Dalai Lama said. As individuals and as leaders, when we reach out to others, lifting them up, we experience that connection, and the resulting fulfillment brings us happiness.

Even during a pandemic, he advised, we can find peace. Science and intellectual analysis, he stressed, are vital. If health professionals advise that it is not safe to gather, we need to respect that. He said he personally has found solitude useful for meditation. But being alone should be a choice: “With technology, the oneness of people becomes more clear,” he added. “We can communicate with each other.”

Isolation, he pointed out, can be largely a state of mind. “Tibet, in ancient times, was lonely but happy.” Even in the sparsely populated, mountainous country, “When one family needed some help, they could ask,” he said, relying on a strong sense of community.

Now, people are clustered in big cities but often without a sense of their interdependency.  “Instead of trust, there is fear and distrust,” he said. Focusing on material wealth or competition rather than on interdependency and the general good “eventually creates anger, so the person will not be happy.”

Countering this outlook is within our power. He described his own travels and how, as a stateless person, he could have felt isolated and alone. Instead, wherever he was, he saw himself as part of a larger community, anywhere in the world.

Pushing further for being in the world, the Dalai Lama promoted what Brooks called “the sanctity of the intellectual life.” He repeatedly returned to the need for academic rigor, even at the expense of religious doctrine. Following discussions with scientists, for example, he has let go of centuries-old Buddhist concepts, “like Mount Meru and the sun and the moon being the same size,” he said, referring to the sacred peak considered the center of the universe. “You must be realistic and analyze,” he said.

“What kind of future depends on the present, the younger generation — you are the key people who can create a happier future,” the Dalai Lama told a Harvard Business School class on Saturday night.

“We’re not like other animals,” he said, simply seeking sustenance or safety. “A lot of our problems are our own mental creations.” The solution, he stressed, comes in improving our educational systems to teach community and equality rather than division and difference. Science, he added, can further our understanding of our emotions and the human mind. “A lot of problems were created by the human mind itself, so the remedy also, you see, lies within the human mind. Investigate.”

He concluded his talk by speaking directly to the student audience. Referring to his own status as a refugee and to the problems that his generation has left the world, he became, once again, philosophical. “Time is always moving,” he said. “We cannot change the past. The future is not yet come. What kind of future depends on the present, the younger generation — you are the key people who can create a happier future. So, please, you should not just copy what has happened. New thinking is very necessary. Please think more.”

(Courtesy: the Harvard Gazette)

Jesuit Fr. Leo O’Donovan, former president of Georgetown University, will deliver the invocation at Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration on Jan. 20.

O’Donovan confirmed to NCR that Biden had personally called him and invited him to offer the prayer at the inauguration, which will mark the election of the nation’s second Catholic president, and that he had accepted.

O’Donovan is a longtime friend of the Biden family. In 2015, he presided at the funeral Mass for Biden’s oldest son, Beau, after he died of brain cancer at the age of 46.

Biden is known to be close with a number of Jesuit priests, and while he was vice president, he occasionally attended Mass at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown. In 1992, when Biden’s son Hunter was a senior at Georgetown, O’Donovan invited the then-senator from Delaware to give a lecture at the Jesuit university on his faith and public life. Biden told O’Donovan at the time it was the “toughest assignment he’s ever had.”

More recently, just days after his presidential election, on Nov. 12, Biden appeared at a virtual fundraiser for Jesuit Refugee Service, where O’Donovan now serves as director of mission. On that occasion, Biden announced that he would raise the annual admission target of new refugees into the United States to 125,000, marking a sharp increase to the Trump administration’s cap of 15,000 individuals. 

Previously, in 2018, Biden penned the foreward to O’Donovan’s book Blessed Are the Refugees: Beatitudes of Immigrant Children.

Catholics have a long history of participating in prayers for inaugural events. In 1937, Fr. John Ryan offered the benediction at President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inauguration. Cardinal Richard Cushing of Boston offered the invocation at the inauguration of the nation’s first Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, in 1961. More recently, in 2017, New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan provided a Scripture reading at the inauguration for President Donald Trump.

While other specific details of the inauguration lineup of speakers have yet to be announced, the Biden-Harris transition team announced last month that on the eve of the inauguration, there will be a memorial to honor lives lost to COVID-19, which will include the ringing of church bells throughout Washington, D.C.

In his message for the 54th World Day of Peace, which will be celebrated on Jan. 1, 2021, Pope Francis offers the Church’s social doctrine as a compass to foster a culture of care for peace in the world.
Pope Francis appeals to the international community and every individual to foster a “culture of care” by advancing on the “path of fraternity, justice and peace between individuals, communities, peoples and nations.”
“There can be no peace without a culture of care,” the pope stresses in his message for World Day of Peace, which will be held on Jan. 1, 2021. The message was released by the Vatican on Dec. 17.
The Holy Father calls for “a common, supportive and inclusive commitment to protecting and promoting the dignity and good of all, a willingness to show care and compassion, to work for reconciliation and healing, and to advance mutual respect and acceptance.” In this task, Pope Francis offers the principles of the Church’s social doctrine as a compass on the path to peace.
Established by Pope St. Paul VI in 1967, the first World Day of Peace was observed on Jan. 1, 1968. On New Year’s Day, the Church also celebrates the solemn feast of Mary, Mother of God.
“A Culture of Care as a Path to Peace” is the theme of the Pope Francis’ message, addressed to heads of state and government, leaders of international organizations, spiritual leaders and followers of the different religions, and to men and women of good will.
Lessons from the pandemic
Pope Francis begins his message noting how the “massive COVID-19 health crisis” has aggravated deeply interrelated crises such as those of the climate, food, the economy and migration, causing great sorrow and suffering to many. He makes it an occasion to appeal to political leaders and the private sector to spare no effort to ensure access to Covid-19 vaccines and to the essential technologies needed to care for the sick, the poor and those who are most vulnerable.
Alongside the pandemic, the pope also notes a surge in various forms of nationalism, racism and xenophobia, and wars and conflicts that bring only death and destruction in their wake. These and other events of 2020, he says, have underscored the importance of caring for one another and for creation in our efforts to build a more fraternal society. Hence, “A Culture of Care as a Path to Peace” is a “way to combat the culture of indifference, waste and confrontation so prevalent in our time,” he states.
Evolution of the Church’s ‘Culture of Care’
The Holy Father traces the evolution of the Church’s Culture of Care from the first book of the Bible to Jesus, through the early Church down to our times.
After the creation of the world, God entrusts it to Adam to “till it and keep it”. Cain’s response to God – “Am I my brother’s keeper?” – after killing his brother, Abel, is a reminder that all of us are keepers of one another. God’s protection of Cain, despite his crime, confirms the inviolable dignity of the person created in God’s image and likeness. Later, the institution of the Sabbath aimed to restore the social order and concern for the poor, while the Jubilee year provided a respite for the land, slaves and those in debt. All this, the pope says, shows that “everything is interconnected, and that genuine care for our own lives and our relationship with nature is inseparable from fraternity, justice and faithfulness to others.”
The Father’s love for humanity, the pope says, finds its supreme revelation in Jesus, who asks His disciples to do likewise. The early Christians followed Jesus by sharing what they had and caring for the needy, thus making their community a welcoming home.
Today, the Church has “many institutions for the relief of every human need: hospitals, poor houses, orphanages, foundling homes, shelters for travellers” and more.
Church’s social doctrine – a ‘grammar’ of care
This culture of care of the Church, enriched by the reflection of the Fathers and the charity of luminous witnesses to the faith, Pope Francis continues, became the “beating heart of the Church’s social doctrine.” This, he says, can serve as a “grammar’ of care: commitment to promoting the dignity of each human person, solidarity with the poor and vulnerable, the pursuit of the common good and concern for the protection of creation.”
The Christian concept of the person, the pontiff says, fosters the pursuit of a fully human development. “Person always signifies relationship, not individualism; it affirms inclusion, not exclusion; unique and inviolable dignity, not exploitation. … Each human person is an end in himself or herself, and never simply a means to be valued only for his or her usefulness.”
According to the “compass” of social principles of the Church, every aspect of social, political and economic life achieves its fullest end when placed at the service of the common good, which allows people to reach their fulfilment more fully and easily.
In this regard, the pope says, the pandemic has revealed that all of us, fragile and disoriented, are in the same boat. “All of us are called to row together [since] no one reaches salvation by themselves.”
The Church’s social principles also urge us to concrete solidarity for others because we are all responsible for all. It also stresses the interconnectedness of all creation, as his Encyclical Laudato si’ points out.
This highlights the need to listen to the cry of our brothers and sisters in need, and the cry of the earth, our common home, and care for them.
“A sense of deep communion with the rest of nature cannot be authentic if our hearts lack tenderness, compassion and concern for our fellow human beings,” Pope Francis states, citing his encyclical.
“Peace, justice and care for creation are three inherently connected questions, which cannot be separated.”
Church’s social doctrine – a “compass” 
In the face of our throw-away culture, with its growing inequalities both within and between nations, Pope Francis urges government leaders, and those of international organizations, business leaders, scientists, communicators and educators, to take up the principles of the Church’s social doctrine as a “compass”. It is capable of pointing out a common direction and ensuring “a more humane future” in the process of globalization. He also calls on everyone to take this compass in hand and work to overcome the many existing social inequalities.
Humanitarian law needs to be respected, especially in situations of conflict and war, which cause enormous suffering to children, men and women. Instead of regarding conflicts as something normal, the pope says, we need to convert our hearts and ways of thinking in order to work for true peace in solidarity and fraternity.
Weapons and peace
In this regard, Pope Francis calls for resources spent on arms, especially nuclear weapons, to be used for priorities such as safety of individuals, the promotion of peace and integral human development, the fight against poverty, and the provision of health care.
He says it would be a courageous decision to “establish a ‘Global Fund’ with the money spent on weapons and other military expenditures, in order to permanently eliminate hunger and contribute to the development of the poorest countries!”
Educating to peace
The promotion of a culture of care also calls for a process of education, the pontiff says.
This begins in the family where we learn how to live and relate to others in a spirit of mutual respect. Schools and universities, the communications media, and also religions and religious leaders are called to pass on a system of values based on the recognition of the dignity of each person, each linguistic, ethnic and religious community, and each people.
“At a time like this, when the barque of humanity, tossed by the storm of the current crisis, struggles to advance towards a calmer and more serene horizon,” he says, “the rudder of human dignity and the compass of fundamental social principles can enable us together to steer a sure course.”
Pope Francis concludes his message, urging “We never yield to the temptation to disregard others, especially those in greatest need, and to look the other way … Instead, may we strive daily, in concrete and practical ways, to form a community composed of brothers and sisters who accept and care for one another.”