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NATION,
NCM
For
Christ's Sake
All
the same, the Catholic church feels let down by Joseph. "He has not
been acting in solidarity with the community," argues CBCI Deputy
Secretary-General Father Donald D'Souza. Spokesman Dominique Emmanuel
points out that demands for Joseph's recall originated from Kerala churches
after he had talked about Christian extremists posing a threat to the
nation. Explains John Dayal of the All India Catholic Union: "There
is nothing personal against Joseph. The NCM treated the Uttar Pradesh
incidents superficially."
According
to an NCM member, however, Dayal's ire is personal. As evidence, he points
to the reasons Dayal had given to the National Human Rights Commission
(NHRC) last month to secure police protection. Dayal had cited utterances
of Joseph and BJP spokesman Venkaiah Naidu against him to justify his
case for security.
Joseph had
beaten Dayal to the NCM when it was recast in January. The CBCI had on
its part proposed the names of Dayal and Father Lourdeswamy. A close associate
of Lok Sabha Speaker G.M.C. Balayogi, Joseph was backed by the TDP and
Union Minister of State O. Rajagopal, for whom he campaigned in the 1999
Lok Sabha election.
The CBCI
has faulted Joseph for not being representative of the community. "He
is ignoring the Catholic majority," says Father D'Souza. "We
are 16 million out of a total 24 million Christian population. He is relying
on fringe Christian groups of 10,000." Joseph discounts such charges,
"What is all this fuss about major and minor denominations? Most
of those in the Pentecostal church are from a Catholic background."
Joseph also denies giving a clean chit to the VHP and Bajrang Dal. "The
Hindu groups are active in Gujarat and Orissa," he says, but admits
that the two states are core areas of evangelisation too.
The John
vs John spat has brought to the fore fissures in the Christian community
along denominational lines. With its leaders divided over even identifying
the enemies of the faith, the confusion of the lay Christian can be well
imagined.
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