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Church, RSS welcome Goa CM's statement

The statement made by Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar that the Goan church is swadeshi has received a positive response from both the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh as well as the local church in Goa, but with their own interpretations of a swadeshi church.

Parrikar, the first Bharatiya Janata Party chief minister of the state, had told this correspondent in an exclusive interview last week that the Goan church is swadeshi as they conduct prayers in Konkani and the Christians in Goa are patriotic by nature.

That is the reason, he had claimed, that the BJP had admitted good Catholics rather than corrupt Hindus from the splinter groups of the Congress, which ultimately led to the BJP withdrawing from the erstwhile ruling coalition and forming its own government.

The BJP cabinet in Goa consists of one Muslim and two Catholic ministers, who claimed that they have responded to BJP president Bangaru Laxman's appeal to the minorities to join the saffron party.

Though he partly agrees with Parrikar's interpretation of a swadeshi church, Hemant Bakhle, the local RSS general secretary, said the concept of a swadeshi church was mooted by RSS chief K S Sudershan with the intention of initiating a nation-wide debate on the issue.

According to Bakhle, any church which does not profess that property of the church is property of Rome, does not believe in forcible conversions and is fully patriotic and nationalist in nature is a swadeshi church.

"In that sense, the Goan church can definitely be termed as a swadeshi church," said Bakhle. The RSS has raised the issue mainly because of the church's activities in the north-east, he claimed.

Enquiries made at the Bishop House revealed that the church properties herein Goa are not under the control of Vatican City in any manner and are fully managed and controlled by the local committees of each and every church, except that the Bishop's final approval is sought for any decision taken by the village-level committees.

"Love of religion is love of the country. That is what we believe in," quipped Fr Carmo Martins, spokesman of the Goan church, stating that nobody can doubt the nationalist credentials of the church in Goa. He also reiterated that Goa church is not involved in any kind of forcible conversions.

"A local church is the one which enters into the mainstream of national life, expresses its faith and worship through science and cultural heritage of the region and adopts external forms of worship through the cultural and religious forms of the people, including gestures and postures," stated Fr Martin.

Declining to comment on the chief minister's views on the issue stating that interpretations of a swadeshi church vary from person to person, Fr Martins said the church always believed in indigenisation by adapting to the culture and tradition of local people.

"We have adopted all these things," he said.

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