INDIAN CARMELITE ARCHBISHOP CLAIMS THAT BENEDICT XVI “BELIEVES” IN YOGA

INDIAN CARMELITE ARCHBISHOP CLAIMS THAT BENEDICT XVI “BELIEVES” IN YOGA

CARDINAL RATZINGER BELIEVES IN YOGA And Also Helped Build Church in India

http://www2.dw-world.de/southasia/germany-india/1.134367.1.html by M.G. Srinath April 20, 2005

The Indian connection

The newly elected Pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany helped to build a church in the southern Indian state of Kerala and also likes yoga. Indian media quoted Church officials in the southern state as saying that Cardinal Ratzinger as archbishop of Munich raised funds to build a church in Chungam in the Alappuza district of Kerala state. Father Abraham Kakkanattu has been quoted as saying that when he undertook of task of building the St. Mary’s Malankara Catholic Church in Chungam in the 1970s by seeking financial help from his friends in India and abroad.

Among them was a person called John Madai, a lay theologian from Germany, and a friend of Ratzinger. Reports quote Kakkanattu as saying that Madai had predicted that Ratzinger was to become the archbishop of Munich and he might help.

“I had sent a detailed estimate to him” Kakkanattu recalls. When Ratzinger became the archbishop of Munich in 1977, he soon sent an amount of 20,000 German Marks ($13,360) for church building.

When Kakkanattu sent a thank you letter, Ratzinger soon replied saying:”I have done my obligation. Do not thank me for this. It’s my duty to help a church in need. I request the prayers of you and the entire parish.”

To thank the German priest, the faithful in Chungam have installed a marble plaque saying that the church was constructed with the generous support of Joseph Ratzinger, archbishop of Munich.

Another priest, archbishop Daniel Acharuparambil, who was the rector of the Pontifical Urbanian University in Rome when Ratzinger was the prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith, says the two used to discuss a lot about Indian culture and spirituality.

Acharuparambil has been quoted as saying that Ratzinger believed yoga, through meditation and contemplation, was the perfect health approach.

The Indian priest had served the Urbanian University for 24 years remembers Razinger as a widely read man. END

MY COMMENT: We have only the Archbishop’s word for it. [see more in the SURYA NAMASKAR & YOGA report]

The Archbishop of the Latin Archdiocese of Verapoly, Kerala, is of the same religious order as Fr. Gregory D’Souza discussed in the SURYA NAMASKAR & YOGA report, Order of Carmelites Discalced. NOW READ THIS: