Kerala’s Catholic Church objects to ‘Marxist’ book
I’m certainly no Marxist but I see the renaissance and the reformation as rebellions against a tyrannical theocratic feudal structure left over from the dark ages. The Catholic Church certainly played a part.
The Catholic Church in Kerala [ Images ] has taken serious objections to the new Social Science textbook for the 10th standard, prepared during the previous Left Democratic Front’s rule, alleging that it contained “grossly baseless anti-church contents” and “propagated Marxist political ideology”.
The newly installed United Democratic Front government recently set up a three-member committee headed by former chief secretary Dr D Babu Paul to examine the controversial textbook following the church’s complaint.
According to Father Philip Nelpuraparambil, secretary of the Education Commission of the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council, the textbook makes a “deliberate attempt” to propagate anti-religion ideology by looking at history through a “purely Marxian perspective”.
“The textbook is not merely an attempt to mislead and instil an anti-religious outlook in young minds but also contains several totally untrue and adverse observations against the Catholic church,” said Father Nelpuraparambil.
The textbook, prepared by a research council set up when the state was under the LDF rule, did not contain the authentic history of the world but the Marxst version by running down religion in general and Catholicism in particular, he alleged.
For instance, the chapter on Renaissance titled ‘the rise of the modern world’ was entirely meant to defame the church and establish that Catholic ideals were outdated, Father Nelpuraparambil claimed.