ওয়াশিংটন বাংলা রেডিও Washington Bangla Radio USA

*Calling “forgiveness begging” “step in right direction”, Hindus urge Pope for “white paper” on sex scandal* Calling Pope’s “forgiveness begging” at a Vatican Mass on June 11 a “step in right direction”, Hindus want Pope to urgently come up with a white paper on global sex scandal engulfing the Roman Catholic Church, which they called “unprecedented and shocking”. His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI was concelebrating Mass at St. Peter’s Square in Vatican on June 11 with some 15,000 priests, concluding the Year for Priests. Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said that this authoritative paper should truthfully address the reported worldwide sexual abuse crisis the Church was facing; and then list the solutions, action program and implementation schedule. A monitoring body should also be established for future. Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, pointed out that stonewalling could not go on forever to handle such a big Church credibility crisis. It was now time to abandon the institutional self-protection and embrace accountability and transparency. Vatican should come out of its bureaucratic web and reset its priorities and undertake complete reform. Besides being very crucial to the moral credibility of Catholic hierarchy, this crisis had also eroded the faith of believers in religion in general and resulted in their falling confidence. Eyes of the world were at Vatican now to see how it handled this scandal as Roman Catholics at about 1.17 billion were the largest single religious group. If asked, Hindus were willing to help Catholics to plan preventive strategy for the future on this issue, Rajan Zed added.