Thiruvananthapuram: The call of a senior Catholic bishop in Kerala that Christians should send their children to church-run schools has sparked strong protests, with the Left and Sangh Parivar activists terming it as a dangerous move.

"This is a call which involves dangerous dimensions. Secular values can only flourish in a social milieu in which people professing different faiths intermingle and live together," CPI-M official daily Deshabhimani commented in its editorial. However, the Bishop said he did not have any "narrow communal motive" when he made the statement.

"I did not intend to provoke any section. My whole stress had been on the need to strengthen the moral and ethical aspects of education," Archbishop Joseph Mar Powathil told reporters when asked about his controversial statement.

Criticising the tendency among Christians to send their children to non-Christian institutions, Mar Powathil had said while addressing a church forum recently that every religion had its own culture and heritage and these were passed on to generations through educational institutions of various faiths
Reacting to Mar Powathil's call, state Hindu Aikyavedi general secretary Kummanam Rajasekharan said issuing such edicts would only create communal divisions in society.

Former archbishop of Syro Malabar Church, Mar Powalthil now heads the inter-church council on education, a forum of various church denominations that run a large number of instititons in the state. The council had been on the warpath with the LDF Government's educational policies.

Source : PTI