Vatican: Happy Diwali!

Vigil of the Feast of All Saints

Diwali (Deepavali, Divali) is an Hindu festival that spans five days, usually falling between the middle of October and the middle of November. During Diwali, each day is dedicated to different Hindu "gods" or "goddesses," and certain traditions are honored in order to please them. Among these include offering a candle and sweets near a Holy Basil tree (or some other “sacred” tree) in order to appease their god of death, receiving oil massages, worshiping the goddess of wealth, and keeping one's household spotless in order to receive a visit from the goddess Lakshmi, who will look especially favorably upon you if you worship a broom (Pramodkumar, Meri Khoj Ek Bharat Ki, pp108-09).

As Diwali is about to commence, the Vatican has issued a statement addressing the Hindu community. Brief comments from TB are provided at the end

N.B.: The primary article is sporadically spaced, sometimes skipping several lines between sentences, other times having two or three words running together with no spaces. These errors were all fixed in transcription, without citing where they appear.

(Begin)

Dear Hindu Friends,

1. In a spirit of friendship, the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue extends to you best wishes and cordial greetings as you celebrate Deepavali on 3 November next. May God, the source of all light and life, illumine your lives and deepen your happiness and peace.

2. In this highly competitive world where increasingly individualistic and materialistic tendencies adversely affect human relationships and often create divisions in families and society as a whole, we wish to share our thoughts on how Christians and Hindus can foster human relationships for the good of all humanity through friendship and solidarity.

3. Relationships are fundamental to human existence. Security and peace in the local, national and international communities are largely determined by the quality of our human interaction. Experience teaches us that, the deeper our human relationships, the more we are able to advance towards cooperation, peace-building, genuine solidarity and harmony. In short, the ability to foster respectful relationships is the measure of authentic human progress and essential for promoting peace and integral development.

4. Such relationships ought to flow naturally from our shared humanity. Indeed, human relationships are at the heart of human existence and its progress and naturally give rise to a sense of solidarity with others. Regardless of our ethnic, cultural, religious and ideological differences, all of us belong to the one human family.

5. Sadly, with the increase of materialism in society and a growing disregard for deeper spiritual and religious values, there now exists a dangerous trend to accord the same value to material things as to human relationships, thereby reducing the human person from a ‘someone’ to a ‘something’ that can be cast aside at will. Furthermore, individualistic tendencies engender a false sense of security and favour what His Holiness Pope Francis has described as ‘a culture of exclusion’, ‘a throwaway culture’ and ‘a globalization of indifference’.

6. The promotion of a ‘culture of relationship’ and ‘a culture of solidarity’ is thus imperative for all peoples, and calls for the fostering of relationships based on friendship and mutual respect for the benefit of the entire human family. This requires a common recognition and promotion of the intrinsic dignity of the human person. It is evident then that friendship and solidarity are closely related. In the end, a “culture of solidarity means seeing others not as rivals or statistics,but brothers and sisters” (Pope Francis, Visit to the Community of Varginha (Manguinhos), Rio de Janeiro, 25 July 2013).

7. Finally, we wish to state our conviction that a culture of solidarity can only be achieved as “the fruit of a concerted effort on the part of all, in service of the common good” (Pope Francis, Meeting with Brazil’s Leaders of Society, Rio de Janeiro, 27 July 2013) Sustained by the teachings of our respective religions and aware of the importance of building genuine relationships, may we, Hindus and Christians, work individually and collectively, with all religious traditions and people of good will, to foster and strengthen the human family through friendship and solidarity (TB: Oh really?  Pius XI disagrees: "When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony [Quas Primas]."). We wish you a happy celebration of Deepavali!

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran

President Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue

Father Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, MCCJ

Secretary 

Vatican News

(End)

What can be said? This letter drips with masonic sentimentality, appealing to the bond of human fraternity to help foster relationships between cultures, nations and religions, completely irrespective of any objective truth -- not to mention the complete and utter disregard for the urgency of conversion on the part of the pagans.
 

Of course, it is the height of scandal for anyone who purports to represent the Catholic Church and to be sent by Her to wish a pagan people well during their celebration of a pagan feast, devoted to superstitious customs directed towards false gods which are in fact demons:  "But the things that the heathen do immolate, to devils they do immolate, and not to God.  And I will not have you become fellows of devils" (I Cor. X: 20).