Once my father called up on Good Friday and I was at work and he wondered why it was not a holiday in United States which is a Christian majority country. I explained the absence of religious holidays here.
There was something puzzling about the Indian government’s decision to declare a three-day state mourning for Pope John Paul II, Karol Jozef Wojtyla. Did it try to appear more Christian than Christians, or more “secular” than the rest? I am all for showing respect to the dead, irrespective of their creed, faith or colour. However, the Indian government’s decision raises some interesting questions. Did it declare a state mourning because the Pope was a head of state?
Does the death of a sovereign of an artificial state of less than 1,000 people deserve it? Vatican is a “state” whose head, the Pope, is elected by an electoral college consisting of 117 voting cardinals
