New prefect of the congregation for the Evangelization of peoples defends religious freedom.

Bombay--On May 23, 2006, the Indian Bishops' Conference praised the decision by the governor of Rajasthan state to reject an anti-conversion bill. Pope Benedict XVI had said in regard to the bill: "The disturbing signs of religious intolerance which have troubled some regions of the nation, including the reprehensible attempt to legislate clearly discriminatory restrictions on the fundamental right of religious freedom, must be firmly rejected as not only unconstitutional, but also as contrary to the highest ideals of India's founding fathers, who believed in a nation of peaceful coexistence and mutual tolerance between different religions and ethnic groups."

Leaders of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) reacted with several protests to the Pope's comments on the anti-conversion bill. On May 20, a Hindu group set fire to images of the Pope in several places in the state of Madhya Pradesh, in opposition to papal "interference" an the country's affairs. BJP president Rajnath Singh wrote the Pope saying that his comments on India's anti-conversion laws "has pained us all in India."

Cardinal Ivan Dias, formerly Archbishop of Bombay but now the newly appointed prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of People characterised the Pope's critics as "a tiny politico-religious fraction of the religious majority in India." He stressed that "freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practise and propagate one's religion have been enshrined in the Constitution of India." He emphasized that conversions "should never be induced by force, fraud or allurement. The Catholic Church considers all such conversions as invalid. But, any opposition by law or de facto to a genuine conversion, besides being a grave violation of the code of human rights and of the spirit of the Indian Constitution, is, above all, an unwarranted interference in God's unique competence in the matter."

Cardinal Dias regards as "imperative that the said group [of critics] be asked to produce factual evidence proving a single forced conversion to the Catholic Church in India as a sign of its bona fide intentions. All allegations made in this regard in the past," he recalled, "have proved to be utterly false," (Cath. News Agency May 22, 2006; Zenit May 24, 2006).

Meanwhile, in India's southern Tamil Nadu state the ruling party--which had backed an anti-conversion bill--received an electoral drubbing, falling back to 69 seats out of 234 (ENI, P.M., May 24, 2006). Christians account for only six percent of that state's 62 million people. Muslims make up eight percent.