India: political leader says that Catholics are ‘cultural Hindus’
September 06, 2013
The leading political figure in Goa, the southwestern Indian state evangelized by St. Francis Xavier, told The New York Times that Catholics are “cultural Hindus.”
Described by the Times as “an affable face of the Hindu right,” Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said that “India is a Hindu nation in the cultural sense. A Catholic in Goa is also Hindu culturally, because his practices don’t match with Catholics in Brazil; except in the religious aspect, a Goan Catholic’s way of thinking and practice matches a Hindu’s. So Hindu for me is not a religious term, it is cultural.”
The Global Council of Indian Christians criticized Parrikar’s remarks as “inept.”
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Further information:
- A Conversation With: Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar (New York Times)
- Goan Catholics are culturally Hindus, says Chief Min. Parrikar, GCIC slams inept remark (Persecution.in)
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