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Catholics in India’s Maharashtra state who oversee programs that prepare adults to join the Church risk imprisonment under a new law, bishops said Thursday.
The bishops of India’s second most populous state issued the warning March 19, after the state legislature passed a controversial anti-conversion bill.
The bishops argued that the provisions of the Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Act amounted to “a direct and unjustified interference in the legitimate religious practices of the Catholic Church, particularly its Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) program.”
The bishops said the RCIA — now known as the OCIA in the U.S. — was designed to ensure that adults made a free and informed decision to become Catholics, eliminating any possibility of forced conversion.
“However, under the present law, even such a carefully discerned and freely chosen conversion could be easily challenged,” they said.
“If family members, who may naturally oppose such a decision, raise objections, the clergy and others involved in the process risk being accused of coercion or of ‘brainwashing’ as mentioned in 2(p) of the bill.”
“In such circumstances, they face the threat of severe and disproportionate
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