Catholic Ashrams

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Catholic Ashrams
Author Sita Ram Goel
Country India
Language English
Publisher Voice of India
Publication date 1988, 1994
ISBN ISBN 81-85990-15-8

Catholic Ashrams is a book published by Sita Ram Goel in 1988 under his Voice of India imprint. The book was reprinted in an enlarged version in 1994.

The book is about missionaries that established "Ashrams" in India and incorporated Hindu customs in their "Ashrams". Representatives of this Christian Ashram movement are Robert de Nobili, Jules Monchanin, Henri Le Saux, Swami Abhishiktananda and Fr. Bede Griffiths.

In his book "Catholic Ashrams", Goel criticized the work of his Christian friend Swami Abhishiktananda, and presented a dialogue between Fr. Bede and Shri Ram Swarup. Goel was the Treasurer of the Christian "Abhishiktananda Society" when he published his critical book "Catholic Ashrams", and its publication alienated him from many friends.[1]

Christian apostates have favourably commented on this book.[2] Catherine Cornille and others have criticized Goel for his anti-Christian perspective.[3][4] Cornille has claimed that Goel belongs to a movement that "seeks to return to the pure Vedic religion", a charge that Goel has denied.[5]

Goel was also criticized by Christian author and nun Vandana Mataji.[6]

Goel has also written other books about Christianity: History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1989), Papacy, Its Doctrine and History (1986), and Jesus Christ: An Artifice for Aggression.

Contents

[edit] Bede Griffiths

Goel documents a dialogue between himself, Ram Swarup, Swami Devananda and the missionary Frater Bede Griffiths.[7] The dialogue started in the Hinduism Today and Indian Express.[8]

Devananda accused Bede of subverting and subsuming us "with our own spiritual concepts, just as Paul subverted and subsumed the Greeks with their’s."[9]

Devananda also compared Bede's teachings with those of Fr. Monchanin. Bede has denied this, but Raimundo Panikkar, the first president of the Abhishiktananda Society, said: “Monchanin is, with Le Saux, the founder of Shantivanam. Shantivanam lives on today in the tradition of the Trinity transmitted by its two founders and the last guru of the ashram, Father Bede Griffiths’[10]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Goel: History of Hindu-Christian Encounters
  2. ^ The Guru in Indian Catholicism: ambiguity or opportunity of inculturation? By C. (Catherine) Cornille
  3. ^ Catherine Cornille. The Guru in Indian Catholicism: Ambiguity or Opportunity of Inculturation, Louvain, 1990, pp.192-93.
  4. ^ Preface to Goel's "Catholic Ashrams". 1994.
  5. ^ Preface to Goel's "Catholic Ashrams". 1994.
  6. ^ Goel: History of Hindu-Christian Encounters
  7. ^ The correspondence between Swami Devananda and Fr. Bede was published with the permission of both Devananda and Bede. (Preface)
  8. ^ Goel: History of Hindu-Christian Encounters
  9. ^ Goel: History of Hindu-Christian Encounters
  10. ^ Bulletin of the Abhishiktananda Society, No. 17, January 1996, p. 115. (Seminar in Lyons, France, April 5-7, 1995)

[edit] Further reading

  • Dr. Sebastian Kim. The debate on conversion initiated by the Sangh Parivar, 1998-1999.

[edit] External links



The works of Sita Ram Goel

How I Became a Hindu (1982), The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (1982), Defence of Hindu Society (1983), The Calcutta Quran Petition (1986), History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1986), Muslim Separatism - Causes and Consequences (1987), Catholic Ashrams (1988), Hindu Temples - What Happened to Them (1990), Vindicated by Time (1998), Freedom of expression - Secular Theocracy Versus Liberal Democracy (1998)