{"id":62372,"date":"2018-07-31T01:08:13","date_gmt":"2018-07-31T01:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/?p=62372"},"modified":"2018-07-31T11:09:35","modified_gmt":"2018-07-31T11:09:35","slug":"indian-catholic-leaders-protest-call-to-ban-sacrament-of-reconciliation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/?p=62372","title":{"rendered":"Indian Catholic leaders protest call to ban sacrament of reconciliation"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Catholic News Service<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<\/span>July 30, 2018 <\/span>|\u00a01 Comment<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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India\u2019s Catholic Church has led a chorus of protest over a demand to ban the sacrament of reconciliation from the chairwoman of the National Commission for Women.<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u201cThis demand is absurd and it displays ignorance about the sacrament of confession,\u201d Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai, president of Catholic Bishops Conference of India, told Catholic News Service July 27.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe tenor of the demand shows they do not understand the meaning nor do they have respect for religious freedom,\u201d the cardinal said following wide media coverage of the July 26 demand from Rekha Sharma, commission chairwoman.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sharma said that \u201cpriests pressure women into telling their secrets,\u201d noting that the commission had heard testimony about one such case. \u201cThere must be many more such cases and what we have right now is just a tip of the iceberg,\u201d she said in calling for the end of the church practice of confessing sins.<\/span><\/p>\n

The call came after five Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church priests in Kerala state were suspended from ministry, including at least two who had sex with a married woman.<\/span><\/p>\n

The scandal erupted when an audio clip of a telephone conversation, purportedly between the woman\u2019s husband and a church official, went viral on social media in June, ucanews.com reported.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was alleged a priest had sex with the woman after threatening to break the seal of confession to reveal to her husband that she had confessed to having a relationship with a priest in her parish before she was married. The priest hearing the confession allegedly video recorded having sex with the woman and passed the information and video to another priest, who also used it have sex with the woman.<\/span><\/p>\n

The woman\u2019s husband said he learned of the incident after he found a bill for a five-star hotel in his wife\u2019s name and she admitted what had occurred.<\/span><\/p>\n

The commission\u2019s demand \u201cbetrays a total lack of understanding of the nature, meaning, sanctity and importance of this sacrament for our people; and also an ignorance of the strict laws of the church to prevent any abuse,\u201d Cardinal Gracias said in a press statement July 27.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSuch a ban will be a direct infringement on our freedom of religion guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. \u2026 I am confident the government will totally ignore this absurd demand from the commission,\u201d Cardinal Gracias said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The cardinal urged the commission \u201cto pay attention to empowerment of women, their capacity building, prevention of domestic violence, organizing rescue systems, and so on, instead of dabbling in religious matters about which it understands nothing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Kerala Catholic Bishops\u2019 Council branded the commission\u2019s call \u201cunconstitutional.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is an attack on the Christian faith and spiritual practice,\u201d the council said. \u201cWe strongly feel that the recommendation is unwarranted. \u2026 We suspect communal and political motives behind this unconstitutional interference into the internal spiritual affairs of the church.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Cardinal Gracias told CNS that there seemed to be a \u201ccontrived attempt\u201d by Sharma to discredit the church by making such a \u201cshocking demand.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Alphonse Kannanthanam, a Catholic politician hailing from Kerala and the only Christian minister in Prime Minister\u2019s Narendra Modi\u2019s cabinet, denounced Sharma\u2019s call as well.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Catholic News Service\u00a0|\u00a0July 30, 2018 |\u00a01 Comment India\u2019s Catholic Church has led a chorus of protest over a demand to ban the sacrament of reconciliation from the chairwoman of the … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62286,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news","category-priests"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62373,"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62372\/revisions\/62373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/62286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}