Archbishop calls religious freedom ‘measure’ of respect for all rights
By Nirmala Carvalho
From Crux Catholic
August 27, 2020
Media credit: Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters via CNS
MUMBAI, India – When religion is “instrumentalized or politicized for vested interests,” the cause of peace is put “in jeopardy,” an Indian archbishop has told a forum on religious liberty in the Asia-Pacific region.
Archbishop Felix Machado of Vasai said most at fault are “political or religious leaders, commercialized by the business world or observed with indifference by secular society.”
Machado, who served as under-secretary of the Vatican’s Council for Interreligious Dialogue from 199-2008, said there have been many human rights violations taking place right now among religious people in the wake of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic and government-imposed emergency restrictions.
