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As Nepal painfully plods its way to becoming a prosperous secular democracy, the tiny Catholic Church in the impoverished Himalayan state pledges its contribution to social services and education in order to build peace, stability, freedom and human rights.  Fr. G. William Robins, a Japanese-Canadian Jesuit who has spent about 45 years in south Asia, made the remark to the Vatican’s Fides news agency after the largely Hindu nation voted on 14 May for representatives in municipal and village councils. This first local election in two decades is a key step to building democracy ten years after the end of the civil war and two years after the approval of the Constitution in 2015. 

The local vote was divided into two phases due to disorders in the southern plains bordering India, where the major ethnic minority group (which accounts for more than half of the 28.6 million inhabitants) refuses to participate in the elections until an amendment to the constitution is approved, guaranteeing greater representativeness and redesigns the borders of the province where they live.  According to the Constitution, after the local and provincial votes, the national elections will follow. The democratic process should come to an end by 2018.

Secularism vs religion

Fr Robins who worked with Jesuits in Eastern Bhutan for 5 years and then in Nepal, mainly teaching maths and science at a high school, was analyzing the current situation in the nation. "In society there are prejudices related to castes and religions. One of the central themes today is secularism, a secular conception of the state that some interpret as secularism, believing that the secular state is an anti-religious state and therefore oppose a secular Constitution,” he told Fides.  “Religion is important for most Nepalese. But this objection is based on a misinterpretation of the expression 'lay state': this means that the state is not confessional. There is still a minority that promotes a Hindu state and ideally a Hindu kingdom", an ideal which the Jesuit priest said is backed by Hindu movements in India.

Church’s education service seen as ‘conversion’

In this context, Christians have encountered difficulties, but they have been able to work "in the long run" by setting up institutions such as schools that are precious for the nation's future, Fr. Robins noted.  "The Catholic Church in Nepal is known for its good educational service, but often ours is perceived as a 'foreign' service. Some groups complain of conversions to Christianity,” he said. “Other Christian confessions tell us that we are not brave enough to go out and preach. But we have hope that the Church will continue to grow,” Fr. Robins said.

According to the 2014 statistics, Catholics in the Apostolic Vicariate of Nepal number some 7,000, and are served by 18 diocesan priests and 60 religious in 11 parishes.   (Source: Fides)

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