Thursday, November 02, 2006

or if you want to commit suicide

nov 3rd, 2006

oh, remember to sign over your wealth to them before you kill yourself, okay?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: arun

Some more bits
 
Evangelist miracle campaign drives many to Suicides
9/28/2006 8:22:36 AM  K.Ramakrishnan

KERALA HIGH COURT ORDERS PROBE ON CHRISTIAN CHARISMATIC CENTRE

Muringoor, Thrissur, Kerala: The Kerala High Court on 10th March directed the Government to constitute a special investigation team (SIT) headed by Vinson M. Paul, Inspector General of Police to probe into various allegations, including sexual exploitation of women against the Catholic run Charismatic Divine Retreat Centre(CDRC), at Muringoor in Thrissur district of Kerala

Justice K. Padmanabhan Nair also ordered that the SIT should inquire into the allegation of foreign exchange violations by the Centre and unnatural death that took place in and around the Centre during the past two years. He ordered that the team be constituted within two weeks.

The direction came on an anonymous letter complaining about criminal and anti-social activities taking place at the centre. After initiating suo motu proceedings on the basis of the letter, the court had received a complaint from a woman detained at the District Jail, Kozhikode, saying that a priest at the Divine Centre raped her. She was detained in the jail in connection with a theft in the centre. According to her, she had filed a complaint before the District and Sessions Judge, Kozhikode, regarding the rape. She said that the police were not investigating the case. She alleged that in the past two years, a number of dead bodies were found on the National Highway and the railway track near the centre. According to her, these deaths were not deaths due to accidents.

She, in her complaint, said that the bodies were buried in the public ground. The keeper of the burial ground had once objected to bringing dead bodies having injuries. He was found dead in mysterious circumstances within two months. The priest at the centre was sexually exploiting women coming to the centre, she alleged.

The court said that the investigation into the complaint of the woman was in cold storage. The attempt of the investigation officers was to exonerate the accused and make the complainant as accused.

The court ordered appointment of a senior officer in view of the allegations that senior IAS and IPS officers were associating with the functioning of the centre. The court also made it clear that it was open to the SIT to resort to scientific methods such as polygraph test, brain mapping and DNA finger printing. The preliminary report should be filed within one month.

 

A visit to the CDRC confirms these observations. The Centre is inside a fortress with huge gates that are always locked.   Mystery surrounds the whole area and none would talk to you except designated priests.  Requests for interview with the participants are sternly denied.   The CDRC authorities were not willing to talk about the controversy surrounding the centre.

It is not uncommon to see over thousands of "candidates for miracles" on a given day at the CDRC near Thrissur town. The Divine Retreat Centre, where retreats in six languages, including English, are simultaneously conducted in six 6 different auditoriums, is an offshoot of the Potta ministry. The retreats are conducted every week of the year with an average of 10,000 people per week and up to 20,000 during the summer holidays. Over 300,000 non-Christians and millions of Christians have attended these on-going weeklong retreats since last seven years and have converted to Christianity.


How does the Church attract so many non-Christians to the retreat center? A false Hindu scholar using the alias Aravindaksha Menon appears at every retreat to explain the sacrifice described in Purusha-Suktham as being the first reference to Christ. In addition, the centre has plagiarised Hindu hymns, classical bhakti works like Poonthanam's 'Jnanapana,' and ritual offerings to entice Hindus to convert.



Against all rules and regulations, the powerful Catholic lobby, backed by Western funding, has even managed to force the construction of a railway station near the retreat centre to pump in thousands of devotees from
Goa each week for the seven-day retreat.   The Secular politicians of the Congress and Communists support the Centre obviously with an eye on their votes.



It is not just Christians who come there, but people of all creed, bound in common only by misfortune, disease and sorrow, and the fierce expectation of a miracle. Even today, if a survey is conducted in the mental hospitals of middle Kerala, more than 50% of the inmates come straight from Muringoor due to failed "miracles". The effects of this misguiding retreat are often tragic. Recently, two young men committed suicide within a week after they came out of the seven-day retreat. The number of mental patients men and suicides arising from the retreat is simply astounding.


Founded in 1987 by Mathew Naickomparambil in Muringoor the retreat centre has not been used by the Catholic Church to alleviate the sufferings of the desperate but instead to exploit the poverty and misfortune of the people.

 

At the Divine Retreat Center devotees from all walks of life throng to witness the so called miracle of body, mind and soul healing.  The propaganda is the blind can see, the dumb can talk and the lame can walk.

 


The powerful Catholic Church meticulously propagates the Centre. Mention illness or spiritual quest, and someone from the Church would meet you and induce you to visit the Centre. Today, Muringoor is projected as a byword for miraculous healing, cure for addictions, strong spiritual experiences, and a way of life founded on the Bible!


Retreat centers are spread all over India-in Kalyan, a Mumbai suburb, in Farida-bad, near
New Delhi, and at Ernakulam in Kerala. Besides, priests of the Vincentian congregation, the initiators of the movement, travel around the world, from Australia to the USA, from the UK to the Middle East and collect huge amounts, utilizing the same for proselytisation purposes.

Although couched in Biblical terminology, the retreat is founded on sound psychological and economical principles such as catching the attention of the poor, week and the meek.  

It is hoped that the probe would reveal the real face of CDRC.  But it is suspected that the powerful Christian lobby is influencing the Congress and the Marxists to scuttle the probe.

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