Archbishop Filipe Neri Ferrao in his 15th pastoral letter released on June 3, at a ceremony organised at the Church of Our Lady Mother of the Poor, Tilamola, has advised Catholics to play an \u201cactive role\u201d in politics while warning that the \u201cthe Indian Constitution is in danger.\u201d
\nFerrao wrote, \u201cIt is easier to trample on the rights of the poor, because those who will raise their voice for them are very few. In recent times we see a new trend emerging in our country, which demands uniformity in what and how we eat, dress, live and even worship: a kind of monoculturalism. Human rights are under attack and democracy appears to be in peril. The various minorities fear for their safety, respect for law is on the decline in this country, he added.\u201d
\nIn his letter, Archbishop wrote, \u201cAt the time of elections, the candidates confuse the minds of many people by making false promises. And the people, on their part, often sell their precious vote for selfish, petty gain. Today our constitution is in danger. Having this concern in mind, Catholic Bishops\u2019 Conference of India had declared in its plenary assembly that the Church should diligently promote and stand by values like secularism, freedom of speech and freedom to practise one\u2019s religion enshrined in the Indian Constitution. Particularly as the general elections are fast approaching, we must strive and work harder to protect the constitution,\u201d he wrote.
\nGoa\u2019s Archbishop letter comes days after Delhi Archbishop Anil Couto wrote in a letter that India is \u201cwitnessing a turbulent political atmosphere\u201d and the community should begin a \u201cprayer campaign\u201d ahead of the elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Archbishop Filipe Neri Ferrao in his 15th pastoral letter released on June 3, at a ceremony organised at the Church of Our Lady Mother of the Poor, Tilamola, has advised Catholics to play an \u201cactive role\u201d in politics while warning that the \u201cthe Indian Constitution is in danger.\u201d Ferrao wrote, \u201cIt is easier to trample […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":299706,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,1801,2014,2026],"tags":[2020,2021,2022,2023,429,2024,2025,574],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298360"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298360"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":299707,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298360\/revisions\/299707"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/299706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}