Pagan Hindu Apartheid Still Infects the Church in India. Pope Francis Is Silent
by Jules Gomes, The Stream:
Let’s step in a time machine, to go back to India at any point before 1950. Imagine you’re there, and you’re thinking of converting to Catholicism. You’re also from a low-caste or “untouchable” (Dalit) Hindu background. I would ask you to conduct a simple test.
Ask your pastor to introduce you to a Catholic priest from a Dalit background. He won’t and he can’t. Because, for centuries, the Catholic Church, following Hindu doctrine, refused to ordain “untouchables” to the priesthood.
The Fifth Provincial Council of Goa (1606) declared: “For the dignity of the priesthood and the respect due to the ecclesiastical persons, low castes should not be admitted to orders. Only sons of higher castes, for example Brahmins, Prabhus, should be ordained.”
No “Dirty” Christians Need Apply
If you were drawn to Catholicism because of the traditional Latin Mass and you wanted to study Latin to follow the liturgy more meaningfully, I would ask you to visit any seminary and check if you could study Latin as a Dalit.
The priest who came out to meet you at the seminary gate (if the watchman won’t shoo you away), would quote the Fifth Provincial Council, which states: “The Synod instructs rectors of seminaries not to teach Latin to non-Brahmins.”
The council was only following Catholic magisterial “tradition.” The Third Provincial Council of Goa in 1585 categorically stated: “Candidates for the priesthood should commonly be from the honored (high) and clean castes.”
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