{"id":941221,"date":"2021-10-30T10:58:48","date_gmt":"2021-10-30T14:58:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=941221"},"modified":"2021-10-30T10:58:50","modified_gmt":"2021-10-30T14:58:50","slug":"pope-francis-meets-with-indian-prime-minister-narendra-modi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/pope-francis-meets-with-indian-prime-minister-narendra-modi\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Francis Meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fpope-francis-meets-with-indian-prime-minister-narendra-modi%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=941221&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p class=\"subheading\">ROME \u2014 Pope Francis received Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Vatican on Saturday, the first encounter between the two leaders.<\/p>\n<p>The extremely succinct <a href=\"https:\/\/press.vatican.va\/content\/salastampa\/en\/bollettino\/pubblico\/2021\/10\/30\/211030a.html\">communiqu\u00e9<\/a> from the Holy See Press Office noted that during \u201ca brief conversation, the cordial relations between the Holy See and India were discussed.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>Modi is known as a hardliner of India\u2019s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is closely tied to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist group.<\/p>\n<p>Since the BJP\u2019s rise to power in 2014, Christians and other religious minorities have complained of increased violence, harassment, and discrimination carried out with impunity.<\/p>\n<p>Last July, the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI), a Christian watchdog group, published its semiannual <a href=\"https:\/\/efionline.org\/2021\/07\/23\/religious-liberty-commission-half-yearly-report-2021\/\">report<\/a>, in which it chronicled 145 recorded incidents of anti-Christian persecution in India during the first half of 2021. This included the murder of pastors, attacks on Christian churches, physical violence, threats, and religiously motivated harassment and discrimination.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>The widespread anti-Christian violence in India stems from \u201can environment of targeted hate\u201d aggravated by a \u201csense of impunity generated in India\u2019s administrative apparatus,\u201d the group asserted.<\/p>\n<p>According to the report, the \u201cmost alarming development\u201d has been the expansion of anti-conversion laws, known euphemistically as Freedom of Religion Acts. These laws \u201costensibly punish forced or fraudulent religious conversions,\u201d the report said. \u201cBut in practice, they are used to criminalise all conversions, especially in non-urban settings.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Christians in India are increasingly the victims of \u201cmyths\u201d and \u201cfalse narratives\u201d propagated by Hindu nationalist organizations such as RSS and Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the report noted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Christians are now in a state of shock and fear,\u201d said the EFI. \u201cDespite their best efforts to seek police intervention, no help has arrived.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_8408066\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" readability=\"34\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Christians-India-Good-Friday-ap.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-8408066\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Christians-India-Good-Friday-ap.jpg\" alt=\"A Christian nun holds a crucifix during a Good Friday procession in Hyderabad, India, Friday, March 30, 2018. Christians all over the world attend mock crucifixions and passion plays that mark the day Jesus was crucified, known to Christians as Good Friday. (AP Photo\/Mahesh Kumar A.)\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Christian nun holds a crucifix during a Good Friday procession in Hyderabad, India (AP Photo\/Mahesh Kumar A.).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The primary driver of anti-Christian persecution in India is Hindu <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uscirf.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/2019USCIRFAnnualReport.pdf\">nationalism<\/a>, closely tied to the idea that to be a \u201creal\u201d Indian, you must be a Hindu. In its annual World Watch List of nations where it is most difficult to be a Christian, Open Doors <a href=\"https:\/\/www.opendoorsusa.org\/christian-persecution\/world-watch-list\/\">placed<\/a> India at number ten in 2021, whereas less than a decade ago, India was ranked number 31.<\/p>\n<p>According to Open Doors, India\u2019s Christians have encountered growing hostility every year since Modi came to power as prime minister in 2014.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"twitter-follow-button\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tdwilliamsrome?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" data-show-count=\"false\">Follow @tdwilliamsrome<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ROME \u2014 Pope Francis received Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Vatican on Saturday, the first encounter between the two leaders. The extremely succinct communiqu\u00e9 from the Holy See &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-941221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=941221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}