Vatican message to Hindus emphasizes negative effects of globalization
October 20, 2014
The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue has issued its annual message to Hindus for Diwali (Deepavali), the Hindu autumn festival of lights.
In the message, released October 20 and entitled “Christians and Hindus: Together to Foster a Culture of ‘Inclusion,’” the Pontifical Council stated that “globalization has not achieved its primary objective of integrating local peoples into the global community. Rather, globalization has contributed significantly to many peoples losing their sociocultural, economic and political identities.”
Globalization, the message continued, has contributed to relativism, syncretism, “a privatization of religion,” and “religious fundamentalism and ethnic, tribal and sectarian violence in different parts of the world.”
“Nurturing a culture of inclusion thus becomes a common call and a shared responsibility, which must be urgently undertaken,” the Pontifical Council added. “It is a project involving those who care for the health and survival of the human family here on earth and which needs to be carried out amidst, and in spite of, the forces that perpetuate the culture of exclusion.”
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