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Vatican condemns violence against Christians in India

Pope Benedict XVI condemned anti-Christian violence in India, where at least 11 people were killed in three days of violence as Christians clashed with Hindu mobs attacking churches, shops and homes.

During his weekly audience at the Vatican, Benedict said he was “profoundly saddened” by news of the violence against Christian communities in eastern India.

“I firmly condemn any attack on human life,” Benedict told a crowd of faithful and pilgrims. “I express spiritual closeness and solidarity to the brothers and sisters in faith who are being so harshly tested.”

HINDU LEADER

The pope also called “deplorable” the killing of a Hindu leader. Hardline Hindus have blamed that death on Christian militants, setting off the latest violence in India’s Orissa state.

Benedict urged religious leaders and local authorities to “work together to re-establish between the members of the various communities the peaceful coexistence and the harmony that have always marked Indian society.”

The violence began as Hindu hardliners set ablaze a Christian orphanage on Monday, killing a woman who worked as a lay teacher and seriously injuring a priest.

VIOLENCE SPREADS

Four people were killed later that day, including two burned alive when rioters set fire to thatched huts.

Six more people were killed on Tuesday and on Wednesday in villages across the state, despite a curfew imposed by police, authorities said.

One was doused with kerosene and burned to death by a mob, another died when protesters set fire to a house, while four were killed in an exchange of gunfire between the rival groups.

It is not clear if the latest dead were Christians or Hindus.

Security forces on Wednesday were ordered to shoot on sight protesters defying the curfew.

‘SIN AGAINST GOD’

On Tuesday, the Holy See condemned the orphanage attack and a top Vatican official called it “a sin against God and humanity.”

In an interview published in Italy’s Corriere della Sera daily, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the head of the Vatican’s council for inter-religious dialogue, said there was “no possible justification” for the assault.

Hinduism is the main religion in India and relations with the country’s religious minorities — such as Christians, who account for 2.5 percent of the country’s 1.1 billion people, and Muslims, who make up 14 percent — are usually peaceful.

However, Hindu nationalists often accuse Christian missionaries of luring poor people away from India’s largest faith through bribes or coercion — a charge churches have denied. The issue of conversions has sparked violence by hardline Hindus throughout India’s history.
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