- Catholic Ashrams
Infobox Book
name = Catholic Ashrams
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author =Sita Ram Goel
illustrator =
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country =India
language = English
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genre =
publisher =Voice of India
release_date =1988 ,1994
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isbn = ISBN 81-85990-15-8
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followed_by =Catholic Ashrams is a book published by
Sita Ram Goel in1988 under hisVoice of India imprint. The book was reprinted in an enlarged version in1994 .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. [Goel: History of Hindu-Christian Encounters]
Christian apostates have favourably commented on this book. [The Guru in Indian Catholicism: ambiguity or opportunity of inculturation? By C. (Catherine) Cornille] Catherine Cornille and others have criticized Goel for his anti-Christian perspective. [Catherine Cornille. The Guru in Indian Catholicism: Ambiguity or Opportunity of Inculturation, Louvain, 1990, pp.192-93.] [Preface to Goel's "Catholic Ashrams". 1994.] Cornille has claimed that Goel belongs to a movement that "seeks to return to the pure Vedic religion", a charge that Goel has denied. [Preface to Goel's "Catholic Ashrams". 1994.]
Goel was also criticized by Christian author and nun Vandana Mataji. [Goel: History of Hindu-Christian Encounters]
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".
Bede Griffiths
Goel documents a dialogue between himself, Ram Swarup, Swami Devananda and the missionary Frater
Bede Griffiths . [The correspondence between Swami Devananda and Fr. Bede was published with the permission of both Devananda and Bede. (Preface)] The dialogue started in the Hinduism Today and Indian Express. [Goel: History of Hindu-Christian Encounters]Devananda accused Bede of subverting and subsuming us "with our own spiritual concepts, just as Paul subverted and subsumed the Greeks with their’s." [Goel: History of Hindu-Christian Encounters]
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’ [Bulletin of the Abhishiktananda Society, No. 17, January 1996, p. 115. (Seminar in Lyons, France, April 5-7, 1995)]
References
Further reading
*Dr.
Sebastian Kim . The debate on conversion initiated by the Sangh Parivar, 1998-1999.External links
* [http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/1986/12/1986-12-03.shtml Catholic Ashrams article]
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