NEW WEBSITE: www.ephesians-511.net OCTOBER 2005/SEP 2007/AUGUST 2009/JULY/OCT 2012

NEW AGE:FR.JOE PEREIRA,KRIPA FOUNDATION,

HEADQUARTERS: MOUNT CARMEL CHURCH, BANDRA, BOMBAY CATHOLIC ARCHDIOCESE.

IMPORTANT SUB-CENTRES: VASAI DIOCESE AND [ANJUNA AND MAPUSA] GOA CATHOLIC ARCHDIOCESE

ALSO OPERATING IN BAREILLY, BARODA, DARJEELING, KOHIMA, MANGALORE AND PUNE CATHOLIC DIOCESES,

AND IN CALCUTTA, DELHI, GUWAHATI, IMPHAL, RANCHI AND SHILLONG CATHOLIC ARCHDIOCESES

And more INSTITUTIONALISED NEW AGE: The WCCM,

THE WORLD COMMUNITY FOR CHRISTIAN MEDITATION

NOTE: SEE INDEX [LIST OF CONTENTS] ON PAGE NUMBERED AS 106*

INTRODUCTION: This report on KRIPA Foundation and Fr. Joe Pereira was prepared in three stages. At first, it was the last ten pages in the ninety-six page New Age in the Catholic Ashrams report published in October 2005.

The report is at
http://ephesians-511.net/articles_doc/CATHOLIC%20ASHRAMS.doc

I have completed two intensively researched reports of around 100 pages each that show conclusively that yoga is a Hindu religious practice and there can be no “Christian yoga”. See:
http://www.ephesians-511.net/documents/YOGA.doc and http://www.ephesians-511.net/documents/SURYA NAMASKAR AND YOGA.doc.

From:
jpst_1995@yahoo. co.uk To:
gulf-goans-owner@ yahoogroups. com
Sent:Sunday August 13, 2006 11:24 pm
Subject:
KRIPA FOUNDATION –SILVER JUBILEE

Dear Friends and Benefactors,
I wish to thank you who so kindly have supported our work for the marginalised owing to addiction and HIV Aids.

Four of our nationwide 46 facilities are in Goa. We have a Counselling Centre in Mapusa. A full fledged Rehab Centre at Anjuna, which is a gift from the famous Albuquerque Family, Casa Albuquerque, a Employee Assistance Programme with Rehab and couselling work at Goa Ship Yard at Vasco, and a Community Based programme for HIV Aids in high risk behaviour community of Sex Workers. By your constant help, at least some of you, We are able to reach out to the afflicted Goan people and Families. On the occasion of our Silver Jubilee of the Foundation, may we ask you to pray and if God inpsires you, to even support our projects in Goa.
You can get more information on our website kripafoundation.org

As a Yoga Instructor I do workshops on Yoga and Meditation both in Europe and North America. This helps me to sustain my Trust. We have a big challenge in India and more and more Archdioceses are asking for our presence.
If you care to join hands with me we can do in the words of Mother Teresa, “Something beautiful for God”
With my priestly blessings. Fr. Joe H. Pereira. Managing Trustee, Kripa Foundation – An Organisation Battling Addiction and AIDS. Reg. Office: Mt.Carmel Church, 81/A Chapel Road, Bandra West, Mumbai 400 050, INDIA. Tel:91-22-640 5411/643 3027; Fax:91-22-641 8210; Email:
frjoe@vsnl.com / jpst_1995@yahoo. co.uk

4. A friend, trained as a Catholic evangelist wrote a letter to Fr. Joe saying that he was taught there that yoga is New Age.

Fr. Joe wrote back, “How sad to see that you are still influenced by some fundamentalist teachings… Protestant oriented charismatics do not understand the Catholic church’s teaching… You still need to learn a lot and OPEN UP. Do not be obsessed and see Satan in other forms of prayer.” [see the letter on page 29] 12.

A year later, he sent Fr. Joe an article by Catherine Marie Rhodes, “CATHOLIC FAITH AND YOGA: INCOMPATIBLE”. Fr. Joe’s terse two-line response: “Your perception is horribly warped.
consult good inidan theologians especially Noel Shet“.

[Find out about Fr. Noel Sheth SJ., President, Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth/Papal Seminary, Pune, author of “The Divinity of Krishna“, promoter of yoga and vipassana, in my reports INDIA- THE LOTUS AND THE CROSS and the PAPAL SEMINARY.]

Seeing the news reports about KRIPA, another such Catholic ‘fundamentalist’ wrote to me, “Michael, Here is a flourishing practice by the priest within the church premises… Jesus doesn’t seem to have a mention even once in all this…”

5. Apart from yoga, ayurvedic and homoeopathic medication is given to patients at KRIPA. [see page 3]

The Vatican Document on the New Age names homoeopathy – in its list of advertised New Age alternative therapies, and mentions “various kinds of herbal medicine”, in the section on Health: Golden living, #2.2.3.

The reader is invited to study my researched reports on these subjects on this ministry’s website. Homoeopathy is grounded in occult philosophies. Some ayurvedic treatments can be classified as New Age, and there are always close links with yoga.

Fr. Joe, who promotes “Indian traditional medicine” should take note of the following warning and advice to priests from the African Bishops which coincided PRECISELY with the Silver Jubilee celebrations of his KRIPA Foundation:

(i) African bishops to priests:
Stop acting as traditional healers

By Bronwen Dachs Catholic News Service (CNS) CAPE TOWN, South Africa August 15, 2006 Southern African bishops have told priests they can no longer act as traditional African healers. Priests must… channel their ministries of healing through the sacraments and sacramentals of the church,” said the bishops of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, which represents South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland.

In an August 11 pastoral letter, the bishops expressed concern that “many African Christians, during difficult moments in their lives, resort to practices of the traditional religion…”.

Noting that they are empathetic with suffering people and understand their desperate search for healing, the bishops said, “We should remember that we need more than healing of the body. We need healing of body and soul, healing which brings us eternal health, eternal life and happiness.

We need total healing” that “Christ alone can give,” the bishops said… Priests “receive authority and power from the church and not from undergoing a ritual to become a diviner-healer. The claim to a double source of power and authority confuses Christians and undermines the image of the priest because the one contradicts the other,” the bishops said. “By virtue of the sacrament of orders,” priests “are consecrated to preach the Gospel, to shepherd the faithful and to celebrate divine worship as true priests of the New Testament,” they said. Priests exercise their sacred function above all in the celebration of Mass, they said…The bishops rejected “all forms of divination” and said that all practices of magic or sorcery “by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one’s service and have a supernatural power over others – even if this were for the sake of restoring their health – are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion.”

(ii) http://www.cathnews.com/news/608/104.php
CHURCH RESOURCES CATHNEWS August 17, 2006

The reader is requested to visit our website www.ephesians-511.net and read the following articles:

Each chakra [lit. wheel] or spinning energy centre corresponds to a Hindu guardian deity and is associated with its mantra and governing cosmogonical element as elaborated here [Chakra/ Guardian deity/ Mantra/ Cosmogonical element]:

muladhara/ Brahma/ lam/ Earth; svadishtana/ Vishnu/ vam/ Water; manipura/ Maharudra/ ram/ Fire; anahata/ Ishvara/ yam/ Air; vishuddha/ Sadashiva/ ham/ Ether; ajna/ Shiva/ om or aum; sahasrara  or crown chakra.

Once kundalini reaches the last chakra, it returns to its primordial union with the impersonal Ultimate Reality. 

29 to November 3, 1992, in the Philippines, one of the main speakers was the ashram leader from India, Vandana Mataji [http://www.ucanews.com/search/show.php?q=yoga&page=archives/english/1992/11/w2/mon/as6062.txt] see pp. 49, 61

http://www.ucanews.com/search/show.php?q=yoga&page=archives/english/1994/08/w1/wed/ie0607.txt

UCAN CALCUTTA, August 3, 1994 “As a priest, I was a hypocrite, but Kripa saved me,” confesses
Father David Charles Monteiro, an alcoholic-turned-counselor in a rehabilitation center near Calcutta, eastern India.

Started with six patients in 1989 in a room at Bijoygarh, 3 kilometers south of Calcutta,
Kripa (mercy) rehabilitation center has so far treated some 600 patients, including Father Monteiro.

The first Kripa center was set up in Bombay by Father Joe Pereira, a diocesan priest.

The Calcutta center won the 1993 national award for the best center fighting drug abuse in India.

The award was given by the Anti-Narcotics Council of India, based in the southern city of Thiruvananthapuram.

Father Monteiro is among the patients who completed treatment and resumed normal life. The diocesan priest is now one of 11 resident counselors at the center, which was moved to Gangarampur’s Boys Town four years ago.

“An alcoholic, I was on the streets for eight years when Father Pereira sent me for treatment,” Father Monteiro told UCA News. After recovery, he stayed at the Calcutta center for three years.

“What I get from and can give these inmates is far greater than anything outside,” he said, insisting he, like the 60 Kripa inmates, lives “for the present,” but the “experience of Kripa is enough to keep one going with hope.”

The dilapidated complex has four blocks, including the 15-bed de-addiction unit, which takes a patient through detoxification and primary care during the first month of admission, when they are cloistered. “The rehabilitation program is a multi-phasic, multi-disciplinary approach,” explains Shubhorup Dasgupta, another addict-turned-counselor.

The program includes group therapy, personal counseling, occupational therapy, input, discussions,
yoga, prayer, meditation and recreational therapy supported by the 12-step method of Alcoholics Anonymous…

“Our focus is to
pray to a God of your understanding
as a supreme power to which you can always turn for help,” Dasgupta explained, so Christians, Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists at the center can pray and meditate together. …The center’s future plans include income-generating activities through farming, horticulture, piggery and small industry.

Its funds come from Calcutta archdiocese, Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, Association San Lorenzo, Communita Cenacolo of Italy, Andheri Hilfe of Germany, Miller Wilson Associates of Canada and the United States.

2.
PRIEST FINDS YOGA EFFECTIVE THERAPY FOR DRUG ADDICTS
[see my comment on page 15]

http://www.ucanews.com/html/ucan/f_dishpatch.asp?ucalang=English_../news_report/english/2003/01/w2/thu/IB3117FA.txt

UCAN MUMBAI, January 9, 2003 A Catholic priest in western India has found that an ancient discipline can be an effective therapy for a modern curse.
Father Joe Pereira, who heads a chain of drug rehabilitation centers in various parts of India, has been successfully using yoga to cure drug addicts.

The 57 year-old priest of Bombay archdiocese claims “patients respond to yoga therapy better” than to other therapies.
He told UCA News that yoga, meaning “union” in Sanskrit, denotes harmony and perfection in whatever one does.

The ascetic Hindu discipline aims to achieve liberation of self and union with a higher power through intense concentration and deep meditation. Among its methods are “asanas” (prescribed postures) and controlled breathing.

Father Pereira said yoga therapy helps addicts adopt a lifestyle of physical exercise, meditation and healthful eating. He uses the therapy on drug addicts in the Kripa (mercy) Foundation, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center that he set up in Mumbai in 1981. Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, is about 1,410 kilometers southwest of New Delhi.
The priest began using yoga after other forms of therapy failed to achieve desirable results in his patients. He said their “restless desires disappear” when their minds “are in harmony and find rest in the spirit within.”
Yoga is now widely used in all of the foundation’s 17 branches in six Indian states. All those centers utilize yoga as “a psychosomatic and psycho-spiritual methodology for holistic health,” Father Pereira explained. 16.

In his view, any de-addiction treatment is “essentially a spiritual program, enabling substance abuse victims to realize and rely on (a) higher power, evidently God.”

Only spirituality can make an addict sane, he insists. “Stop thinking and keep silence,” he pointed out, is the first lesson in spirituality because it helps people discover their own inner spirit and listen to its voice.
Before the spiritual is addressed, however, the centers help patients understand that just avoiding drugs is not their final goal. Their real goal, they are told, is to live a more positive, healthy life. “This needs discipline of body and mind,” said the priest, who claims yoga accelerates recovery and produces a “total change in lifestyle and vision.”
Father Joseph Topno, who looks after a center in Vasai, some 50 kilometers north of Mumbai, says addicts cannot “successfully give up their addiction unless they change their personality and orientation to life.” Making one quit the addiction may be easy, but keeping a person off drugs is challenging, the 43-year-old tribal priest told UCA News.

According to Arthur George D’Mello, the foundation’s executive director, the centers have treated more than 15,000 drug addicts, with a success rate of more than 60 percent. The Catholic layman told UCA News that though their programs are very greatly based on yoga, Western medicine is also used to help manage withdrawal pain.
Dev Varman, a government policy maker, commended the success of the Kripa centers in treating drug addicts. Last year in the southern Indian city of Chennai, Varman told a meeting of people working with substance abuse victims that he found the use of yoga at the Kripa centers to be “touching.” He said that
the foundation has become a model for all working with addicts and that it influenced the federal government to recommend yoga as compulsory therapy in its more than 300 de-addiction centers in India. The government has also asked its centers to appoint a yoga therapist, Varman added.
Upendra Thochom, a former Vasai center inmate, says yoga not only cured his drug addiction but also helped him attain harmony in life. Thochom went to the center as a patient eight years ago but now is its yoga instructor. “Yoga gave me back my life,” he told UCA news, “so I want to live the rest of my life promoting it among addicts.”
Patients in at the Vasai center practice yoga, mostly simple asanas, for three hours a day, according to the youth from northeastern India. Besides practicing yoga postures, patients do breathing exercises, read spiritual books and meditate, and also attend counseling and inner healing sessions. Thochom said they are also encouraged to get involved in vegetable cultivation and other work in the center, and to eat vegetarian meals.

3. Read about Fr. Joe Pereira [and priests and nuns like him] in this New Age story:

AN INDIAN JESUIT THEOLOGIAN, FR. FRANCIS GONSALVES REPORTS ON

“Meditating and Medicating on the Margins” [see also page 12]

The left-wing liberal National Catholic Reporter
September 3, 2003 Vol. 1, No. 23 reports with pride on the
New Age
in the Catholic Church
in India through this article,
Meditating and Medicating on the Margins
by
Fr. Francis Gonsalves, a Jesuit of the Gujarat province
who “lectures in systematic theology at Vidyajyoti College of Theology, Delhi, and has published many articles on theology, spirituality and social justice”:

“While most believers raise their hands in worship,
Catholic priest
Swami Devaprasad, who harmonizes
hatha yoga
with Christianity, frequently raises his feet, too. In Pune, Buddhists are thrilled that Fr. Peter D’Souza
conducts
vipassana courses, and that
Medical Mission Sr. Ruth Manianchira
heals hundreds through
reiki.
Fr. Joe Pereira
of
Mumbai
cures alcoholics and drug addicts through
yoga, while in South India,
Jesuit priests Ama Samy and Sebastian Painadath
run Zen
courses and
Bhagavad Gita retreats, respectively, with rousing response.

Spirituality, not doctrine – the human body, not merely the mind – is the meeting ground of India’s modern missionaries who meditate and medicate on the margins between Catholicism and Indic religions.

Moreover, their margin-ministries are moving the Indian church toward rediscovering the Indian Christ, and refurbishing Indian Christian-ness.

… The word yoga derives from the Sanskrit yuj, which means “to unite” or “to yoke together.” Swami Devaprasad describes yoga as “the quest to unite the jeevatma (individual soul) with the paramatma (the universal soul or divine reality), thus achieving equilibrium within oneself, and with others, nature, God.”

“Though we come from different religions, we all meet at the level of spirituality,” asserts
Painadath, whose Gitasadhana “is an intense initiation into contemplative prayer based on the integrated spiritual transformation undergone by Arjuna under the impact of the divine Lord traced in the Bhagavad Gita.”

…“During my seminary training,
the Catholic church was too left-brain oriented,” muses Joe Pereira, “resulting in a dichotomy between lofty dogma and actual practice especially as a ‘sexual celibate.’ In my thirty-five years of yogic practice I have come to listen to my body and even explore its wisdom.”

The practice of yoga, which enhances psychosomatic healing, enabled Pereira to evolve a new model for the recovery of addicts within the psychosocial model of treatment.

While monasticism and Puritanism of the West have often led to utter neglect of the body or narcissism, Indian spirituality values the body. “The body is a true shrine within which to meet God,” stresses Devaprasad.

…”Faith, without works, is dead” (James 2:17). The spiritual margas (paths) of bhakti (worship) and jnana (knowledge) are sterile if they do not flow into karma (action). Painadath insists that without a harmonization of the three margas, religious practices can be alienating… 17.

…Margin-missions endow religion with fresh meanings. In our postmodern world of fluid frontiers, Ama Samy advocates the “practice of passing over and coming back – passing over into Zen, for instance, then coming back to our own Christian tradition and standing in the in-between.” Consequent to the crisscrossing of creedal confines, conceptions of Christ change. Pereira and Swami Devaprasad unanimously worship Jesus as
“The Supreme Yogi” who proclaimed, “I am in the Father and the Father in me” (John 14:11).

…Reiki – meaning, “spiritually guided life force energy” – helps Manianchira unleash channels of spiritual power that lie latent within the depths of being. Indeed, the wellsprings of all religions surge from these spiritual depths. …Manianchira is enthusiastic about the healing powers of reiki: “a wonderful glowing radiance that flows through you, surrounds you, and treats the whole person – body, emotion, mind, spirit – creating extraordinary effects like relaxation, peace, security, well-being, and other miraculous results.”

…In conformity with the charism of the Medical Missionaries in India, Manianchira has jettisoned the “hospital model” or “medicine-dispensing model” in favor of “not merely removing symptoms but addressing the root causes of illness which lie at the very depths of our being.” She strives for ‘integral healing’ and ‘sustainable health’ for all.

…Manianchira admits to calling upon the power of “Jesus the Healer” to empower her in her mission. “I often see Jesus as a reiki practitioner,” she confesses, “who preaches forgiveness and love as means of wholeness.”

…Manianchira receives letters spiced with scriptural sayings alleging that reiki and pranic healing are satanic systems*. Fortunately, her religious community supports her fully…

Among the ecclesiastical hierarchy, there is mixed response toward incorporating Indic spiritual systems into Christianity. Some bishops and priests support such moves. Others stump them.

Hopefully,
Jesus the reiki Healer
will draw us toward holism, and
Jesus the Yogi
will unite us to all peoples, nature, God.“

*MY COMMENTS: It is always gratifying when one’s efforts are recognized, but the circumstances in question here are not edifying. They are, to use a phrase that I always exclude from my vocabulary, but for want of a better substitute introduce here, most unfortunate. I am referring to the “letters” that Sr. Ruth Manianchira MMS admits to receiving. The letters are in fact my reports, primarily one titled: “New Age Alternative Medicines such as Reiki and Pranic Healing which are being practised and taught in Holistic Health Centres run by Catholic nuns in Chennai and in Pune with the blessing of the Church.” This report is dated 29.06.2000. Sr. Ruth is mentioned by name in the report, along with the other Medical Mission Sisters who run the ‘healing’ centre.

Amasamy and Painadath, Jesuit priests, ashram founders, are elaborated on in my report on Catholic Ashrams.

The report was reached to the Holistic Healing Centre as well as to the Bishop of Poona in whose diocese it operates.

This New Age priest, Fr. Francis Gonsalves SJ is the very same priest who writes the ‘Sunday Reflections’ [on the Sunday liturgies] in the fortnightly, The New Leader and contributes regularly to The Examiner!!!

4.
CHURCH CENTER COMPLETES 25 YEARS OF HEALING CHEMICAL-DEPENDENT ADDICTS

http://www.ucanews.com/search/show.php?page=archives/english/2006/08/w3/tue/ID00900RA.txt [see page 29]
UCAN MUMBAI, August 2006 A nondescript signboard in an annex of a Marian shrine complex points to the “help line” office of Kripa (Grace) Foundation. A small room inside the complex is the office of Father Joe Pereira, the founder. His center, which helps hundreds of chemically dependent and HIV-infected persons in India and abroad, marked its 25^th anniversary on Aug. 15.

“Inner healing through yoga is the center’s uniqueness,” the 64-year-old priest of Bombay archdiocese explained to UCA News as he looked up from his laptop. The computer connects him to the center’s 48 units spread over 13 Indian states, as well as other units in Canada and Germany. Father Pereira has used the same office inside Mount Mary Church in Bandra, a Mumbai suburb, for the past quarter of a century. Mumbai, formerly called Bombay, is 1,410 kilometers southwest of New Delhi. The priest emphasized that Kripa’s goal is to transform “the life of a patient from afflicted to affected.” To facilitate inner healing and lifestyle changes, Kripa blends Western techniques with
Indian yoga, Buddhist vipassana meditation, Chinese Tai Chi martial arts and Japanese Shiatsu massage.
The treatment program includes counseling, detoxification, rehabilitation, aftercare and extended care, Father Pereira said. He also pointed out that Kripa tries to wipe out the stigma of being addicts and “makes an effort to welcome them into the community, which is very essential.” On average, about 200 addicts benefit from the live-in treatment each year. Hundreds of others get help from the “drop-in” facilities they visit on a regular basis, said G.S. Shreenivas, who has worked in the center’s research and documentation department for seven years.
Kripa also offers counseling and community-based training to prevent the recurrence of addiction, he said, and the overall recovery rate is 60 percent a year. Patients cured at Kripa are trained and absorbed as staff ino its various facilities, including the drop-in section, and family- and community-based training programs. According to Shreenivas, the center keeps records for just two years, but the center has treated around 20,000 people during its 25 years of existence. One “wounded healer,” a term the center uses for cured patients, is Bosco D’Souza, 47. He told UCA News he was an alcoholic for 25 years and it took him “a long time” to realize alcoholism is a disease that requires help to cure.
“Those days, I was a bartender and it did not take me long to take to drinking,” said D’Souza, who now looks after the center’s unit in Vasai, 50 kilometers north of Mumbai. “After a point, I could not go without drinking, and my entire family suffered because of that,” he said. He said he sought Father Pereira’s help when he realized he could not kick the habit alone. Now, D’Souza said, he helps other people kick their habits. 18.

Father Pereira said he began working with substance abusers when he was a young priest. His appointment as the Marian shrine’s parish priest allowed him to set up a center inside the shrine complex in 1981.

“Initially,” he recalled, “I used to help substance abusers on an individual basis.” Father Pereira said he launched the center with guidance from Blessed Mother Teresa of Kolkata, and the center’s first three patients were a Catholic priest, a doctor and a recovering alcoholic.

His parents gave him the land for the Vasai center, 50 kilometers north of Mumbai, where 43 residents now follow a strict treatment program. One is a middle-aged Catholic priest who has completed 10 months of treatment.

He said: “My negative attitude toward life has changed. Now, I want to serve others.”

Sashi Menon, a physician who has worked with Kripa for 16 years, told UCA News that the center “provides a spiritual and physical balance.” The doctor commends the center for employing cured patients. “Having gone through the healing process, they can easily develop into competent staff,” he said. Only 15 percent of the Kripa staff are non-addicts and professionals, he added.

Kripa extended its service to HIV/AIDS patients in 1990 and began reaching out to drug addicts at a federal jail in Manipur state, northeastern India. The center conducted a survey in Manipur for the Indian government in 1995, Menon said, because “drug addicts are in the high-risk group to contract HIV.” That same year, it began a round-the-clock HIV/AIDS help line in its Bandra and Vasai centers, and in Goa, west India, and Nagaland, northeast India.
The federal ministry of social justice and empowerment partly funds Kripa, as do national and international charity organizations. Father Pereira also raises funds through his yoga classes within and beyond India. He was in Europe teaching yoga just before the center’s silver jubilee. All the units strive to heal the nation and the world, “particularly in these troubled times, and meditation is one way of doing that,” he asserted. Kripa plans to take its message to schools through meditation and yoga, “but there’s a long way to go,” the priest added. “The thirst is to heal on a larger scale, and work toward peace and harmony among communities.”

5.
FR. JOE PEREIRA TAKES “CATHOLIC YOGA” TO CANADA

Building bridges between yoga and Catholicism

dtodd@png.canwest.com Douglas Todd, October 13, 2007, The Vancouver Sun 2007

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=cd666bfc-9158-4e58-8cb3-47373f4fb793

and http://www.kripafoundation.org/Newsroom_Newsletter.html : http://www.kripafoundation.org/images/nov07.pdf

Father Joe Pereira promotes the view that ‘accessing the wisdom of the body’ fits in with the teachings of Jesus

With its elegant, aging cathedrals spread out across the countryside, Roman Catholicism is Canada’s largest official religion.

But with hundreds of stylish new studios opening up across Canadian cities, sometimes it seems as if Catholicism’s strongest new “competitor” is yoga. Tension simmers between these traditions of the East and West, with polls suggesting each draws the support or interest of roughly 40 per cent of the Canadian population.

Yoga practitioners often dismiss Catholicism as a doctrinaire, uptight, hierarchical religion. Catholics often write off yoga as self-indulgent exercise — and, at worst, a heretical form of Hindu spirituality that could open practitioners to satanic forces.

Not well-known in Canada, but famous in India,
the brave man who has spent much of his life trying to ease suspicion and build bridges between these two traditions is Catholic Father Joe Pereira.

The remarkable 65-year-old priest from India says the most influential figures in his life — the teachers who represent “the yin and yang” of his spiritual education — have been
Mother Teresa of Calcutta
and India’s
B.K.S. Iyengar, arguably the world’s most influential living yoga master.

Father Joe, as he’s called, was in Vancouver in late September to teach a weekend yoga workshop, speak about Christian meditation and seek support for his Indian organization’s work with people who are addicted or diseased.

Admirably comfortable in multiple spiritual and cultural spheres,
this veteran celibate priest in black shirt and white clerical collar makes quite a sight leading an audience in chanting “Hari Ommmm.“

Pereira talked about
Jesus as the “Supreme Yogi”
in an interview.
Only a yogi could say, “I and the Father are One,”
Pereira said. To the Catholic priest, yoga is ultimately a route to total surrender to, or unity, with God. Like a yogi, Pereira says, Jesus spent much time in private contemplation and prayer — to free himself from bondage to fear and “illusion,” such as addictive thoughts and desires.

Despite his long friendship with Mother Teresa, Pereira remembers decades ago how she became a little concerned and asked him,
“Father Joe: What is this yoga you are teaching my nuns?”

Pereira had offered yoga to the nuns because they were falling asleep during their prayers. Yoga was a way for religious people to stop their ceaseless “babbling” in prayer, liturgy and conversation. Yoga, he said, allows religious people to heed God’s plea in the Bible to open their body and heart to the “indwelling spirit of God.”

In the early 1980s, receiving Mother Teresa’s staunch support for the therapeutic powers of yoga, Pereira founded what is now India’s largest non-governmental charitable health organization, Kripa.

Kripa has grown to 50 institutes throughout India. They are devoted to bringing yoga, spirituality, psychology and other practices to the healing of addicts and the treatment of those struggling with HIV-AIDS.

Kripa boasts a recovery rate for addicts of 65 per cent in the first year, 38 per cent over subsequent years — figures Pereira says are much higher than those obtained through western treatment programs.

19.

“Yoga is all about accessing the wisdom of the body,” Pereira says. Since Jesus taught that the human body “is a temple of God,” the priest says Kripa’s goal is to help the suffering realize they have “damaged their temple” and need to “love it back to health.” Since he began to learn yoga almost 40 years ago when he was a young priest undergoing a spiritual crisis and fighting his own addictive tendencies, Pereira describes himself as a “sexual celibate” who’s learned through yoga not to deny his sexual energy. Disowning the sex drive, he says, leads to priestly pedophilia and other dangerous “explosions.”

Instead, endlessly energetic Pereira says yoga teaches him to “sublimate” his sexual energy and “use it for healthy living.”

Despite his bold beliefs and actions,
Pereira has managed to maintain strong backing for his work from key Catholic leaders in India, including Mumbai’s Cardinal Ivan Dias, who was in 2006 appointed prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelization of People.

The Catholic church has generally blessed Pereira’s yoga work as as an example of “inculturation,”
a Vatican-endorsed practice that encourages priests to adapt regional customs and religious rituals into Catholicism. About two per cent of India’s 1.1-billion population is Christian.

Regardless of his success at convincing most fellow Catholics to keep open minds about the spiritual and health benefits of yoga, Pereira says many “fundamentalists” and “charismatics” in the Catholic and Protestant churches in India remain appalled by his close ties with Iyengar and yoga. “There are still many barking dogs.”

Not content with challenging traditional Christians to open to yoga, however, Father Joe also has a message for the secular West — which he thinks is dominated by overly rationalistic, technical, left-brain-thinking people. “I don’t want to judge people, but
I think if you do yoga without spiritual language and perspective, it just turns into gymnastics, into body work.”

Louie Ettling, owner of The Yoga Space, where Pereira led a three-day workshop for 55 people, has also studied in India with Iyengar and appreciates the way Father Joe was careful not to use Christian language in a way that might alienate his Vancouver students.

Since B.C. [British Columbia] yoga practitioners come from a variety of spiritual and secular backgrounds, Ettling said, “Father Joe asked them to focus on that which would help them connect with
their own understanding of the absolute.”

Calling yoga a “spiritual practice”
rather than a religion, Pereira believes it dovetails with Christianity and other faiths because it aims to access the spirit of God that resides in all people.

Hindus might call this spirit the Self, or atman, Pereira says. Like Christians who believe God is incarnate in people, Hindus similarly believe the Self is, at the mystical level, the same as God, or Brahman.

The priest says it’s only through deep relaxation, which comes through yoga, meditation and related spiritual practices, that humans can calm their anxious minds and open to the presence of God. His message seems perfectly suited for many Canadians, especially those on the spiritually eclectic West Coast.

Near the end of an evening lecture in Vancouver on Christian meditation, organized by Catholic lay person Colleen Donald,
Father Joe was asked to offer some Biblical verses that could help meditators and yoga practitioners “open their bodies to God.” He answered by raising up some of what he called the Bible’s “yogic verses,” which focus on the paradoxical need to forget your ego to find your true Self.

One of them was from Psalm 46: “Be still and know that I am God.”

MY COMMENTS:

1. To promote his New Age errors, Fr. Joe has the full support of the Indian Church, including that of Indian Cardinal Ivan Dias, who is none less than the Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

2. As pointed out earlier, Fr. Joe continues to misquote/misinterpret the Bible and genuine Church teaching. [see below]

3. He promotes “Christian Yoga”. My intensively researched articles on yoga [see www.ephesians-511.net] conclusively prove that there is no such thing as “Christian Yoga”. The two are mutually exclusive.

But the Word of God exhorts us to "have the mind of Christ" [1 Corinthians 2:16]. 

The Christian is enjoined to "be transformed by the renewal of your mind that you may prove what is the will of God" [Romans 12:2], "gird up the loins of his mind" [1 Peter 1:13], "sing [God's] praises with the mind" [1 Corinthians 14:15].

From:
prabhu
To:
rupertvaz@gmail.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 2:30 PM Subject: KRIPA FOUNDATION

Dear Rupert, Praise the Lord. I appreciate the spirit with which you posted the report of the eviction of Kripa Foundation [KC 1483 of May 27, 2008], but may I request you to read my report on KRIPA [see also my website www.ephesians-511.net], partly copied and attached here. KRIPA is the foremost organized promoter of yoga and, along with WCCM, the false “centering prayer” meditations of Dom Main and Laurence Freeman in the Catholic Church in India. Love, Mike

My above letter to the moderator, KonkaniCatholics, of which I am member, was not acknowledged.

**When contacted by this writer, the General Secretary of the Catholic Secular Forum (CSF) explained that the CSF was unaware of the use of yoga etc. by Kripa Foundation and had taken up the cause believing it to be a worthy Catholic one.

21.

A few weeks later, there was another posting on KRIPA in KonkaniCatholics:

The Kripa Medical Dispensary at Our Lady of Egypt Church, Kalina [Archdiocese of Bombay]

Posted by: “Robin Viegas” konkanicatholics@gmail.com Wed Jul 9, 2008 4:54 am (PDT)

Hi, Just a short note to advise U that our parish website has been updated with news & schedule of the inuaguration of the Kripa Medical Dispensary on Sunday July 13th, at 9.30 am. Read more at http://www.olep.org Robin Viegas

http://www.olep.org: The Kripa Medical Dispensary is organizing an eye check-up camp from 8:30 a.m. to 12 noon at St. Mary’s Junior College Hall. Eye doctors will be in attendance. Spectacles will be given free of cost.

From:
prabhu
To:
Austine J. Crasta ; Rohit D’Souza ; RUPERT VAZ
Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2008 7:09 PM

Subject: KRIPA/YOGA in KC

Dear Moderators, Please refer my email of May 28 to Rupert [on the same subject, KRIPA,] which was not acknowledged. Once again, KC 1535 of July 10, 2008, there is a posting about Kripa Foundation. Do not allow KC readers to continue to be misled. Yoga therapy and other New Age errors will now be easily available at another Catholic parish in Mumbai. Surely you must warn Robin and other KonkaniCatholics members? Love, Michael

My above letter to the moderators, KonkaniCatholics, of which I am member, was not acknowledged.

7.
READY FOR A HIGH AT ‘CLEAN’ DISC?
Bandra Priest Plans Discotheques Sans Booze, Drugs

TNN Times News Network December 13, 2008, by Ashley D’Mello ashley.dmello@timesgroup.com 

Mumbai: Psychedelic lights flash across the dark hall as a DJ belts out blaring numbers to dancers jiving away in a trance—they are high on ‘life’, nothing to do with alcohol or psychotropic drugs. Welcome to the new unique ‘clean’ discos.
After the recent bust-up of a rave party in Juhu, the city’s most recognised anti-drugs crusader, Father Joe Pereira, is on a new mission. He wants to set up a clean disco to prove that youngsters can hit a high without artificial agents. So, the menu at such a nightclub will only have fruit juices and mocktails.
Fr Pereira’s Kripa Foundation, the voluntary organisation that has been associated with drug de-addiction, plans to build a chain of such clean discos across the city. Kripa, which also works with HIV-positive persons, runs 48 centres in 11 states and a few collaborations abroad.
At present, Fr Pereira is talking to various groups, including Brian Tellis of event management firm Fountainhead, to garner support for his project. The idea, he said, was to offer youth an alternative to the prevalent culture in most discos and even in some restaurants. “The new discos will give them a chance to enjoy their evenings-out without going for alcohol binges,” he said.
The first of the clean discs will come up in Bandra or Juhu. “Initially, we will have a disco night once in two weeks. We can have it every day, once things start rolling,” he said. Kripa already runs a clean disco in Zurich as part of its drug rehabilitation centre’s cultural activities. There, disco nights—popularly known as Startagain—are held once every fortnight. “Our experience has been good. It is time to try this out in Mumbai,” Fr Pereira added. He thought of actualising his clean disc idea after he spoke to youngsters caught at the Juhu party on October 5. “Some told me that they did not take drugs though many in the party did. So I decided to let the public know that you can have fun without being high on drugs and alcohol,” he said. At that party, 231 youngsters were picked up for taking drugs, 109 of whom tested positive.
The disco will be initially serviced by Kripa veterans who have been cured of addiction. “Having been in the game, they know how to tackle would-be drug users,” he said…

8.
Priest advocates use of yoga to combat HIV-AIDS 19 February, 2009, TNN Times News Network

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Goa/Priest_advocates_use_of_yoga_to_combat_HIV-AIDS/articleshow/4151984.cms

PANAJI: Fr Joseph Pereira, the first Christian priest to be awarded the Padma Shri for social work this year, has said that in India where anti-retroviral treatment is beyond the reach of most people,
yoga can delay the onset of full-blown AIDS by five to ten years, depending on the age of the person.
Popularly known as Fr Joe, the 67-year-old founder of Kripa foundation has done
pioneering work in the field of yoga for alcohol de-addiction and HIV-AIDS
in India and abroad for the last 27 years.

A native of Vasai, the priest attended the anniversary celebrations of Kripa Rehabilitation Centre at Anjuna on February 15 and is presently teaching yoga to a group of Britishers.
He is a certified instructor in the B K S Iyengar school of yoga. Fr Joe has established several Kripa centres in Goa, including the Kripa counselling centre at Mapusa and the Kripa rehabilitation centre at Anjuna. “I teach yoga for alcohol addiction recovery and for HIV-AIDS.
Yoga is a very powerful means for strengthening the immune system of a person,” Fr Joe said.
Kripa also runs a employee assistance programme to optimise employee performance at the Goa Shipyard Limited, Vasco. Kripa has 48 facilities in 11 states in India and six collaborative centres in Zurich-Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, Canada, USA and Sao Paolo-Brazil.
Reminiscing, Fr Joe said it was in 1981 that he first treated three patients from Mother Theresa’s Home in Mumbai for addiction, and all three got cured. Mother Theresa was so happy that she called him to Kolkatta and offered him her male orphanage to open his second and one of the largest rehabilitation centres in Kolkatta.

9.
Fr. Joseph H Pereira Awarded Padma Shri
http://richardrego.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/fr-joe-h-pereira-awarded-padma-shri/ March 9, 2009
22.

Rev. Fr. Joe H. Pereira received Padma Shri Award for his Yeoman Social Service in rehabilitating the Alcoholics in Pune and other parts of the country. [He] is the Founder and Managing Trustee of the Kripa Foundation, which is devoted to the care, support and rehabilitation of those affected by Chemical Dependency and HIV & AIDS.
Since its inception in 1981 in Bombay, the Kripa Foundation has grown exponentially and forms a vital links to providing social stability in thirteen Indian states through various multifunction facilities and also has association in other international locations in Europe, Canada and the USA. Known to all as Fr Joe, and many others as “the Singing Priest”, he prefers not to highlight his academic qualifications of Masters in Psychology & Philosophy from University of Bombay, Licenciate in Divinity (Theology) from Bombay & Poona, Certifications in Counselling Theory & Practice (Carkuff Model)* & expertise from the Hazelden Institute of Minnesota, USA.

Most cherished of all such gnostic processes is his decades of involvement with Yoga, first as a patient, pupil and practitioner, then in later years as a Certified Trainer and in recent decades as a friend, associate and an International Mentor of the Guruji B K S Iyengar School of Yoga, Poona. This involvement is so extensive that the holistic component of Kripa care has been strengthened by the gift of self knowledge through sets of Yoga practices developed by Guruji Iyengar.
Fr Joe carries this message with him and delivers it to all who ask for it, during his national and international travels. These modules and his personal instructions and observations are delivered in a unique style that provides demonstration, learning and solace through the audio cassette titled “The Silence of the Spirit” and a video cassette titled “Living with AIDS”.
Academically, Fr Joe is an Adjunct Professor in Yoga Philosophy & Psychology at various Indian Universities, Catholic Institutions and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Fr Joe is the Consultant to the Archdiocese of Bombay for “Rehabilitation of the Chemically Dependent”
and a Consultant-Member of various High Level Committees constituted by the Government of India, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment. He is a Member of the New York Academy of Sciences.
Between 1987 and 2002, various
international workshops have been conducted by Fr Joe at Portland, Oregon and Hot Springs, California in USA and at Calgary and Toronto, Canada on Yoga. “Innovative Methods of Healing the Addict” and “Effectiveness of Yoga in Substance Abusers within the Kripa Model” were research activities presented at the Dharam Hinduja Institute of Indic Research at the Faculty of Divinity in University of Cambridge, UK.

Besides his seminars and workshops in Canada and the USA, Fr Joe conducts annual Seminars at The Black Forest Institute, Germany and at Zurich, Switzerland and at the Coolmine Therapeutic Community, Ireland. Such a hectic schedule can only be supported by his extreme consciousness in personal practices and empathy and love for the socially marginalized.
He constantly says that such commitment can only be through the blessings of great ones like Mother Teresa and Guruji Iyengar and
his spiritual guide Rev Anthony D’Mello*. These perceptions and applications have resulted in various awards in the field of Drug Abuse Care, Health Sciences and Social Services like Priyadarshini National Award (1989), Perestroika Sanjeevani Award (1990), Anti Narcotic Council of India Award for best Establishment in the field (1994), Sahayogi Foundation Award (1995), Ati Vashisht Sewa Medal of the College of Chest Physicians (1997),
International Yoga Journal Karamyogi of the Year Award (2003), Expert to the National Institute of Social Defence (Government of India) (2005) and Christian Chamber of Commerce Award for Excellence in the field of Social Work (2007).
Despite all this, Fr Joe is ever ready to listen to all who approach him. This includes the huge numbers of the general community, patients, clients of the Foundation in India and abroad and not least of all, his large organizational staff numbers, not less than 85% of whom are “wounded healers” in their own paths of recovery and spiritual growth.

MY COMMENTS:
Neither the Hazelden Institute, USA, nor the
Coolmine Therapeutic Community, Ireland, etc. employ the use of yoga for de-addiction from substance abuse. ONLY KRIPA DOES SO.

*Robert Carkhuff [not “Carkuff” model of counselling (an offshoot of Carl Roger’s Client-Centred Therapy) is based on humanistic psychotherapy [http://mumbai.quikr.com/c-Services-Teaching-Education-Tuition-CERTIFICATE-COURSE-IN-ROBERT-CARKHUFF-MODEL–W0QQAdIdZ63433884]. What is Carkhuff? I dn’t know, but a husband and wife team, two Bombay exponents of Carkhuff’s counseling are in a lot of New Age: http://www.athenaindia.in/aboutus.php: Prachi Mayekar Reiki, Feng Shui, Art of Living, Isha Yoga Exponent,
and Joel Joseph Pannikot, Reiki and Isha Yoga.

**The writings of Fr. Anthony de Mello [not D’Mello] were the subject of a “Notification” dated June 24, 1998 by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It was signed by the present Pope Benedict XVI. It warned that many of the priest’s “positions are incompatible with the Catholic faith and can cause grave harm.” His books were banned by Rome.

de Mello, like Fr. John Main, the inventor of “Christian Meditation”, Fr. J.M. de Chanet, Fr. Bede Griffiths OSB., “exemplify ways of incorporating yogic practice into Christian spirituality” [http://www.bodymindmeditation.ie/yoga.htm]

B. SOME CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE BISHOPS REGARDING FR. JOE PEREIRA/KRIPA

1. The following report was carried by AsiaNews:

INDIA’S EXPERIENCE BACKS POPE ON AIDS, SAYS CARDINAL GRACIAS
by Nirmala Carvalho

Speaking to AsiaNews the prelate talks about the Church and it 64 AIDS treatment centres.
March 27, 2009 Mumbai (AsiaNews) The Indian Church is directly involved in caring for people living with AIDS, running 64 AIDS treatment centres. It is convinced that the disease must also be tackled from an ethical and moral point of view. For this reason, it shares the views expressed by Benedict XVI at the beginning of his trip to Africa, said Oswald Gracias, chairman of the Bishops’ Conference of India, in an interview with AsiaNews… … … [EXTRACT] 23.

I wrote to Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Archbishop of Bombay:

From:
prabhu
To:
bombaydiocese@vsnl.com; abpossie@rediffmail.com; abpossie@sancharnet.in;

Cc:
nirmala_carvalho@rediffmail.com
Sent: Sunday, March 29, 2009 2:01 PM

REMINDER Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 6:58 PM Subject: The Indian Church’s 64 AIDS treatment centres

Your Eminence Oswald Cardinal Gracias,

Could you let us know how many centres run by KRIPA Foundation are included in the list of 64 Church-run AIDS treatment centers? Our records show that “Kripa has 48 facilities in 11 states in India” [19 Feb 2009, TNN http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Goa/Priest_advocates_use_of_yoga_to_combat_HIV-AIDS/articleshow/4151984.cms].

From:
Archbishop Oswald Gracias
To:
prabhu
Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 10:27 PM

Subject: Re: REMINDER, PLEASE Fw: The Indian Church’s 64 AIDS treatment centres

Dear Mr Prabhu,
I do not have the list of the 64 centres and so would not be able to give you the data you have been asking.
Regards, Card Gracias

My reply to the Cardinal, to which there was no response:

From:
prabhu
To:
abpossie@sancharnet.in; abpossie@rediffmail.com; Archbishop’s House

Sent: Monday, April 13, 2009 11:45 AM Subject: The Indian Church’s 64 AIDS treatment centres

Dear Cardinal Oswald Gracias,

I thank you for your response.

I am sorry that you could not provide me the list to include it in my updated report on Fr Joe Pereira and his Kripa Foundation. The reason that I asked the question was this:

If the Indian Church is operating 64 AIDS treatment centres, as stated by you, I presumed that you must know where they are located and who runs them.

In my records, at least 48 of these centres are operated by the KRIPA Foundation which uses YOGA to de-addict alcoholics as well as to treat AIDS patients instead of pastoral counseling and the use of the Sacraments.

As two Vatican Documents warn of the spiritual dangers in the use of Hindu yoga, I wanted to be able to understand whether KRIPA’s 48 centres are included in your list of 64 Church-run centres. They probably are.

If they are, it would mean that the Indian Church has institutionalised the use of yoga.

Wishing you a Blessed Easter, Yours obediently, Michael Prabhu www.ephesians-511.net

2. The following report was carried by India Times News, Times of India.

It was sent to me under this letter by a lay man whose area of interest is the Early Fathers of the Church:

From:
derrickdcosta@yahoo.com
To:
prabhu
Sent: Monday, April 13, 2009 4:34 PM

Dear Michael

I really do not know what attracts people to these […] “dark arts”. My own sadness stems from the fact that I sincerely believe if people just look at our own spiritual heritage they will be have a much more effective and wholesome life with answers not merely effective but also good and true which will uplift their spirit. When will these worthy people research the treasures of catholic spirituality instead of seeking answers where there is no hope and no salvation. Just look at the article Christ, the supreme yogi. This is pure Advaita Hindu philosophy and not Christianity. May God have mercy on us.

God bless Derrick D’Costa, Bahrain

Christ, the supreme yogi 10 Apr 2009,
by Fr Joe H Pereira  
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Mumbai/Christ-the-supreme-yogi/articleshow/4382443.cms
When an Indian reads the gospels for the first time, one is impressed by
the energy that radiates from the person of Jesus. William Johnston in his Mystical Theology says that it is a reminder of
the ‘ki’ the ‘chi’, the prana, the energy that forms the very basis of Asian Culture and religion. Energy goes out of Jesus when he heals the sick and casts out demons.
Light, blinding light, radiates from his body and clothing when he is transfigured on Mount Tabor.
On Good Friday, as we recall his last days on earth, as he says, “I am” in response to those who came to arrest him,
the crowd falls to the ground overpowered by his magnetic presence. And finally
with a burst of energy he dies
as recorded by the evangelists, “crying out with a loud voice, he yielded up the Spirit” (Mark 15, 37).
Those Christians who practise Iyengar Yoga as a path way to God and as contemplative prayer, do consider Jesus as a supreme example of a Yogi who claims that the “Father and I are One” and prays that we may be one as he and the Father. This journey is absolutely yogic. For his call to discipleship is, “if you wish to be my disciple, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me”. It is a lifelong process like the grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies to bear much fruit. When Bill W, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous described addiction as “self-will running riot” he was referring to the third step of the Twelve Step programme which suggests, “to make one’s will and life over to the God of one’s understanding”. In the Garden of Gethsemane, the prayer of Jesus was, “Father if it is possible let this chalice of suffering pass away but not my will but thine be done.” 24.

The Supreme Sadhana is a way of the Cross. Iyengar always repeats his own journey of Yoga as “Pain being my Master”. It is by dying to oneself that one is born to eternal life. This energy is at work in the world even today.
In the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, it is said that, “Christ is now at work in the hearts of men and women through the energy of the Spirit. But the greatest energy and the greatest gift is love. For “greater love than this no one has than to lay down one’s life for one’s loved ones”. And again, “If I speak in the language of mortals and angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong and clanging cymbal” (I Cor, 13, 1). For as St John tells us, “God is love”.
In the process of dying to oneself lies the pathway of forgiveness. In the world of growing individualism and self-righteousness, the path of forgiveness demands a supreme act of surrender. To extend this love and understanding even to one’s enemies by finding an alternative to “a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye” demands a unique sense of transcendence into the realm of the `Purusha’.

It is only from that realm can one interpret the words of the crucified Jesus, “Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing.” Only an act of total `Ishvara-pranidhana’, the final `Niyama’ can generate the energy to utter such words of love at the height of agony. Paradoxically as a supreme yogi, Christ had entered into the final state of ‘Anandamaya-kosha’ (the blissful body) for his cry of forgiveness itself was a cry of Joy and Resurrection at the victory over sin and death.
As
Fr Tony D’Mello, who often spoke like a Sufi Mystic
would say,
“If you ‘look’ at the serene countenance of the crucified Saviour, you may see a ‘laughing Buddha’!”

I wrote to the Cardinal and selected Bishops of arch/dioceses where KRIPA is operative:

[For letters to the Cardinals and Bishops of other Kripa-affected arch/dioceses, see pages 93ff.]

From:
prabhu
To:
ccbi@airtelbroadband.in; abpossie@gmail.com; abpossie@sancharnet.in; Archbishop’s House; diocesebombay@gmail.com;

Cc:
bishopferdie@rediffmail.com; Ferdinand Fonseca; Percival Fernandez; bp_bosco@vsnl.net; Agnelo R. Gracias ; bishopdabre@gmail.com; Bishop Thomas Dabre; vasaidiocese@gmail.com; valdsouz@vsnl.com; punedioc@vsnl.com; archbpgoa@gmail.com; archbp@sancharnet.in; Diocesan Centre for Social Communications Media – Goa; jlpereira_50@yahoo.co.uk; Archbishop Lucas Sirkar; abplucas@vsnl.com; archbishop vincent; Bishop; Dominic Lumon; archbpdj@gmail.com; Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2009 8:44 AM

Subject:
FR. JOE PEREIRA OF KRIPA FOUNDATION PROMOTING NEW AGE THROUGH YOGA AND MANIPULATION OF ESOTERIC “ENERGY” PRANA/CHI/KI

Dear Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Bishop Thomas Dabre, Chairman of the CBCI’s Doctrinal Commission,

and the bishops of Bombay, Goa, Calcutta, Delhi, Imphal and Shillong archdioceses, and Pune, Vasai and Mangalore dioceses,

[just nine* of the many places where Fr. Joe Pereira has established at least 48 Kripa yoga centres under Church governance or on Church property for the de-addiction of alcoholics and treatment of HIV-AIDS patients],

*others are Darjeeling, Kohima, Baroda, Bareilly, etc.

The activities of the Kripa Foundation are regularly announced in The Examiner, the Archdiocesan weekly of Bombay. It is also a Bombay “Archdiocesan project”. Fr. Joe Pereira is “consultant to the Archdiocese of Bombay for alcohol and drug abuse”.

In my October 2005 96-page report on the Catholic Ashrams movement, the last 10 pages are about the Kripa Foundation of Fr. Joe Pereira. It is available at http://ephesians-511.net/articles_doc/CATHOLIC%20ASHRAMS.doc.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Goa/Priest_advocates_use_of_yoga_to_combat_HIV-AIDS/articleshow/4151984.cms

If the Indian Church is operating 64 AIDS treatment centres, as stated by Cardinal Gracias, I presume that they include at least 48 of these centres that are operated by the KRIPA Foundation which uses YOGA to de-addict alcoholics as well as to treat AIDS patients instead of employing pastoral counseling and the use of the Sacraments.

It would mean that the Indian Church has institutionalised the use of yoga by honouring Fr Joe Pereira and encouraging the proliferation of these yoga centres [I have abundance of evidence to establish that].

Do these yoga centres “back our Pope” as the AsiaNews headline claims or actually go against the teachings of the Church of Rome which has issued two Documents that warn of the spiritual dangers in the use of Hindu yoga?

It is known that Fr Joe Pereira receives large amounts of foreign aid, is very powerful, influential, and untouchable.

I have been repeatedly warned by knowledgeable Catholics that it is most risky and dangerous for me to write against this priest.

An updated report on this priest and his New Age yoga foundation, and the spiritual errors that they promote in the name of holistic health care, will soon be released.

Michael Prabhu

There was no response from the Cardinal or the Bishops.

I then wrote the following letter to the Cardinal and the Bishops:

From:
prabhu
To:
ccbi@airtelbroadband.in; abpossie@gmail.com; abpossie@sancharnet.in; Archbishop’s House; diocesebombay@gmail.com;

Cc:
bishopferdie@rediffmail.com; Ferdinand Fonseca; Percival Fernandez; bp_bosco@vsnl.net; Agnelo R. Gracias; bishopdabre@gmail.com; Bishop Thomas Dabre; vasaidiocese@gmail.com; valdsouz@vsnl.com; punedioc@vsnl.com; archbpgoa@gmail.com; archbp@sancharnet.in; Diocesan Centre for Social Communications Media – Goa; jlpereira_50@yahoo.co.uk; Archbishop Lucas Sirkar; abplucas@vsnl.com; archbishop vincent; Bishop; Dominic Lumon; archbpdj@gmail.com; Sent: Monday, April 20, 2009 9:44 PM

Subject: FR. JOE PEREIRA OF KRIPA FOUNDATION PROMOTING NEW AGE THROUGH YOGA […] CONTINUED

Dear Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Bishop Thomas Dabre, Chairman of the CBCI’s Doctrinal Commission,

and the bishops of Bombay, Goa, Calcutta, Delhi, Imphal and Shillong archdioceses, and Pune, Vasai and Mangalore dioceses,

I trust that you received my letter dated April 15. I had missed out on something very important in that letter.

1. The April 10th Times of India report “Christ, the supreme yogi” quotes Fr Joe Pereira as saying, “In the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, it is said that, “Christ is now at work in the hearts of men and women through the energy of the Spirit. But the greatest energy and the greatest gift is love.”

A priest pointed out to me that “I am sure even the so called Vatican II quote is false“. I thought that he was probably correct because, in my 2005 report on Fr Joe/Kripa [pages 87 to 96 of http://ephesians-511.net/articles_doc/CATHOLIC%20ASHRAMS.doc.], I have recorded a lot of Fr Joe’s blatant lies and misquoting. So I asked some of our virtual team to check it out, and this, further below, is what one of them found.

1. From: Name Withheld
To:
prabhu
Sent: Monday, April 20, 2009 5:40 PM

Sorry for the delayed response, Michael, the answer is below.

My Answer:  http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_cons_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html

http://kripafoundation.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-05-16T00%3A06%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=7

Tuesday, January 1, 2008
My visit to Kripa By Mayte Gómez, Vida Plena, Spain
On the first Sunday I spent at the Kripa Foundation in Vasai, near Mumbai, I joined the staff, the residents, and many members of the local congregation in a Mass celebrated by Father Joe Pereira. As I sat in the multi-purpose hall that was now being used as a Chapel and heard Father Joe welcome me as a new member of the Kripa family, I felt I was a very lucky person. Lucky because in my life I have travelled to many different parts of the world, not in order to see the tourist attractions and sights, but to share daily life with real people in real situations. And there I was, this time in India, feeling this fresh, intimate connection with people who live so far away from me but whose hearts vibrate with the same joy and the same hope. As Vedanta teaches us, when we feel this true connection with other human beings,
we know we are all One, and feel closer to Brahman/God.
I had arrived in Vasai a few days earlier, with the intention of spending a month living in Kripa as part of some research I’m conducting for the benefit of my own not-for-profit organization:
Vida Plena (Life in Plenitude) (http://www.vida-plena.org/). Vida Plena brings together professionals from alternative therapies (Acupuncture, Shiatsu, Reiki, Reflexology, etc); humanistic and transpersonal psychotherapy (Gestalt, Psychosynthesis); natural medicine (Naturopathy, Homeopathy, etc) as well as Yoga, Meditation, Tai Chi and other practices for health, personal work and spiritual growth. …As I prepare to go back to the UK, where I reside, and then to Spain, for a few days of meetings for Vida Plena, I am thinking of what I am going to tell my friends and colleagues about my trip. They are all very happy that after more than ten years practicing Yoga and Meditation, I have finally come to India, a country which, in so many ways, is my spiritual home.
But I will have no pictures of the Ganges, the Taj Mahal, or Gandhi’s ashram to show to them. … Instead, I will tell my friends about the yoga classes in the mornings, and about the special sessions with Wilfred; about the input sessions with Francis, Father Matthew, Atul and Vijay. I will tell them …
how they took us to their houses and temples, to the nearby ashram…

And I will explain to them the real meaning of my first-ever trip to India – my spiritual home – because, by the Grace of God, I have been the witness of daily miracles.

Yours obediently, Michael Prabhu

There was no response from the Cardinal or the Bishops to this letter either.

3. A concerned Catholic lay man wrote to the Cardinal and the Bishops, forwarding my letter on the subject:

From:
richard mascarenhas
To:
prabhu
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 12:44 PM

Subject: FW: FR. JOE PEREIRA OF KRIPA FOUNDATION PROMOTING NEWAGE THROUGH YOGA […] CONTINUED

The below email was sent just a few minutes ago. The only way I know to communicate. It sounds harsh but that’s the way I feel. I did pray before I clicked the send button.   

You mention of writing to the Vatican in one of your emails.  Send me the email addresses please. 

Thanks Mike for fighting this battle for the Catholic Church. Richard Mascarenhas

From:
Richard Mascarenhas
Sent: 21 April 2009 11:11
To:
‘ccbi@airtelbroadband.in’; ‘abpossie@gmail.com’; ‘abpossie@sancharnet.in’; ‘diocesebombay@gmail.com’; Cc: ‘bp_bosco@vsnl.net’; ‘bishopdabre@gmail.com’; ‘vasaidiocese@gmail.com’; ‘valdsouz@vsnl.com’; ‘punedioc@vsnl.com’; ‘archbpgoa@gmail.com’; ‘archbp@sancharnet.in’; ‘jlpereira_50@yahoo.co.uk’; ‘abplucas@vsnl.com’; ‘archbpdj@gmail.com’
Subject: FR. JOE PEREIRA OF KRIPA FOUNDATION PROMOTING NEW AGE THROUGH YOGA […] CONTINUED 27.

Dear Bishops & Archbishops,

As guardians of faith and entrusted with the responsibility to ensure that the faith of the lay people is not contaminated by the occult practices, you owe a detailed explanation to what has been reported by Mr. Michael Prabhu by his below copied email, unless you wish to wait until the faithful of the Catholic Church take it upon themselves to come out in the open and take it upon themselves to cleanse Satan’s and its satanic cultures that have been inculturated in the Church. 

The NCB is one book (it can’t be called a Bible) that highlights how low the guardians of the faith have fallen. By your silence you would give testimony to your acceptance of these evil practices.

Yours in Christ, Richard Mascarenhas There was no response from the Cardinal or the Bishops to this letter either.

C. SELECTED EMAIL LETTERS FROM MY FILES CONCERNING FR. JOE PEREIRA/KRIPA

From:
Richard Mascarenhas
To:
prabhu
Cc:
Austine J. Crasta
Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2006 12:38 PM

Subject: Fwd:
Church Center
Completes 25 Years Of Healing Chemical-Dependent Addicts [see page 19]

Prabhu, This article is against the very things u r trying to fight for to be rid from the Catholic Institutions. Here is a flourishing practice by the priest within the church premises. In the Marian Shrine of Bandra, blessed by the MotherTeresa herself. Inner Healing not by the name of Jesus but……. JESUS, where is HE? HE doesn’t seem to have a mention even once in all this. Hope to hear something on your Press Conference. Hope your voice would be heard loud and clear and some corrective action is started by the Church leaders. Richard

JOEL FERNANDES WITH FR. JOE PEREIRA:

From:
Joel G Fernandes
To:
jpst_1995@yahoo.co.uk
Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2006 10:35 AM

Subject:
Yoga – Info required

Dear Fr. Joe,

Praise God. As far as I know, Yoga is not for Christians. How do you refute it? Do I believe that New Age is entering into the Catholic Church through the shepherds themselves? I have been to a Catholic mission school and that’s where they explained how Yoga influences New Age Beliefs. Would be grateful if you could shed some light.

Also you may refer extensive research work on New Age at
www.ephesians511.net

From: Joe Pereira jpst_1995@yahoo.co.uk
To:
Joel G Fernandes
Sent: Saturday, 19 August, 2006 11:07:51 AM
Subject: Re: Yoga – Info required

Dear Joel,

How sad to see that you are still influenced by some fundamentalist teachings.

We as Catholics must be faithful to the Church. Read Vatican Council and the teachings of the Church on Inculturation.

In my 39 years of Priesthood, the Indian ethos of yogic practice has greatly helped me to maintain my priestly holiness and be a Eucharist centered priest. Just come and spend time with me.

Protestant oriented charismatics do not understand the Catholic church’s teaching.

Yes, there are wrong ideas brought into the practice by New Age. But then the same is true of the Charismatic Movement which is sometimes so fundamentalist. Now we also use this for the WCCM, World community for Christian Meditation. You still need to learn a lot and OPEN UP. Do not be obsessed and see Satan in other forms of prayer. Fr.JOe

From:
Joel G Fernandes
To:
jpst_1995@yahoo.co.uk

Subject: Re: Yoga – Info required

Thank you Fr. Joe,

I regret to say that I am not influenced by fundamentalist teachings but rather am aware of what is going on around. I am sure people who are not aware can be misled. Yoga is basically an art of meditation in Hinduism. In the name of inculturation, too much damage is done to the Catholic church and Christianity in general. The viewpoint of non-Christians in India now is that through inculturation, we are fooling them. Wolves in sheepskin.

I do not accept inculturation to the extremes it has gone today with Ashrams and kind of. Does an Imam in UK act like a Anglican priest as part of Inculturation or does a poojari dress vestments of a priest in America? Inculturation has failed to please people and infact it has made them angry. Inculturation has caused so much damage that freedom of faith is taken away from people in lot of states by new laws restricting conversions out of freewill to an extent that priests could be imprisoned without warrant. So much for inculturation.

I am a layman, married with 2 kids, but in my teachings I oppose every form of NAM links which includes Yoga, Ayurveda, Astrology, etc. If it is clearly written in the Bible, it definitely has purpose why it is there. My mission school was one which is appointed by the Vatican to raise lay missionaries adhering to the Catholic Church. I am sure you would know IWE [Institute of World Evangelisation]. Our school taught us everything from the Bible, CCC and the culture and traditions of the CATHOLIC church. And it opposes all forms of New Age activities.

I know for one, when a deliverance prayer was said on a bottle of Ayurvedic medicine by a person with gift of deliverance and exorcism, the bottle burst. Sure you can draw conclusions there.

And thank you for the concern you shown me. I plead each day for the Holy Spirit to guide me and lead me in the way pleasing to my Lord Jesus Christ and be obedient to the the teachings of the Catholic Church.

And as for protestant pastors and leaders, the most of whom I have met and worked with, serving the Lord are much more adherent then most of the priests I personally know. And that is quite sad. Jesus Loves you Father. Love and regards, Joel

From:
jpst_1995@yahoo.co.uk To:
Joel G Fernandes
Sent: Monday, 21 August, 2006 9:44:54 AM
Subject: YOUR NEED DISCERNMENT.
28.

Instead of jumping to conclusions from a limited exposure to Spirituality and Dialogue issue vis a vis the Catholic church, you need to pray for discernment and trust that the Holy Spirit is guiding the Church. If we waste energy judging one another, we end up the same way as the Terrorists, eye for an eye. Love is what matters. There is lot of suffering in the world . Come and see the Kripa Foundation documentary and join us. We need people with the inspiration of Mother Teresa living Mathew 25 every day. love, fr.JOe
From:
Joel G Fernandes
To:
Joe Pereira
Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2006 10:41 AM

Subject: Re: YOUR NEED DISCERNMENT.

Thank you Fr. Joe,

With all due respect, I do not limit my knowledge on the issues that are of the New Age as I am constantly studying what it is and what it is doing to Christianity. It is written, many souls are lost due to lack of knowledge and that is one reason I don’t limit myself in order to expose these to the people I meet, interact and share the word of God with. Forgive me if my mails seemed judgmental, I would never do that. All I wanted to know was Yoga was good for Christians while Vatican has opposed all of New Age activities in the Church one of which is Yoga.

I am currently in Dubai and I am actively involved in Evangelization. Thank you for the invite. When I come down, I will definitely come to the Kripa foundation to witness the work you’re doing for the people of God. 

Thank you for advising me for discernment. I have already had one and I’m right on that track that is perhaps God’s will for me. Thank you again, and may God bless you and keep you, Joel

From:
jpst_1995@yahoo.co.uk To:
Joel G Fernandes
Sent: Tuesday, 22 August, 2006 9:57:15 AM

From:
Joel G Fernandes To:
Michael Prabhu
Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2006 11:33 AM Subject: Fw: CLARIFICATION

Dear Br. Michael, Comments? Joel

MY RESPONSE SEPTEMBER 6:

My dearest Joel,

Please forgive me for the inordinate delay in replying. I was caught up in the correspondence concerning the other maverick priest Fr. Jegath Gaspar Raj in the IN PRAISE OF SHIVA CD affair.

I want to commend you on your crusade to expose Fr. Joe Pereira’s errors. You wrote to me in the same connection earlier concerning the silver jubilee celebration of Fr. Joe’s KRIPA, and the fact that it seemed to be having Archdiocesan support, what with the information being carried in The Examiner as if it were a major pastoral enterprise, which it appears it is, since Bandra parish premises are the headquarters for Fr. Joe’s projects.

I had responded to you to check up pages 87 to 96 of my report on the CATHOLIC ASHRAMS. It is exclusively about this priest. I have now attached it here as a separate document of 12 pages.

You can send it to him, Joel. He had written and asked me for it a few months ago, but I did not mail it to him. He though that I was writing a report like the UCAN one on page 12.

This report will soon be updated by me and sent to the CBCI and Bombay Bishops. May I suggest that you do it now, under a letter of your own. Before you do so, I suggest that you read it thoroughly. You will find that the priest repeats the SAME statements, claims and charges. I have countered ALL of them in my report. So you can know what to write in your covering letter to him as well as to the Bishops.

The email addresses of the concerned Bishops and Commissions are: [… … … …]

…Please keep me informed. Also, Joel, let me know if I have your permission to reproduce this correspondence between you and Fr. Joe in my future additional work on this priest. Michael

From:
Joel G Fernandes To:
Fr. Joe Pereira
Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2007 11:12 PM

Subject:
CATHOLIC FAITH AND YOGA: INCOMPATIBLE By Catherine Marie Rhodes…

From: jpst_1995@yahoo.co.uk To:
Joel G Fernandes  Sent: Sunday, 19 August, 2007 3:06:16 PM

From:
Joel G Fernandes To:
Fr. Joe Pereira
Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2007 11:54 AM

Subject: Fw: CATHOLIC FAITH AND YOGA: INCOMPATIBLE 29.

Dear Fr. Joe, Hope you are doing well. How I wish the same was true, but apparently the writer and a lot of the Bishops ans people like me who fortunately know the TRUTH also feel that it is incompatible for those who follow Christ. Having said that, there are those who are Christians but don’t exactly follow Christ. So that determines who are CHRIST-ians and who are christians. Then there are those who in humility accept correction just as Paul said, every Christian should subject themselves for correction and those who correct, they should do it in love. I hope that sums up the bit.  

And as far as Indian theology is concerned it is corrupted or will use your own words “terribly warped” to an extent with things like adapting to hindu culture and inculturation or in simple language hindu-isation of the Catholic faith. So consulting with a theologian who thinks Yoga to be the daily bread is simply waste of time and I don’t think it’d help anyone who thinks otherwise in anyway. 

I don’t mean to offend you by my e-mail, but if something is terribly wrong being accepted into my faith, I have to stand against it no matter what. Well that is my perception. God bless, Joel

From:
Joel G. Fernandes
To:
Dubai Prayer Group Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2009 8:56 AM
Subject: FW: FR. JOE PEREIRA OF KRIPA FOUNDATION PROMOTING NEW AGE THROUGH YOGA AND MANIPULATION…

Dear Br. In Christ, Below is a classic example of the spread of New Age from the platforms of a Catholic Church. And quoting the scripture to support New Age seems to remind of new heresies making way into the Catholic Church and I do not see why, when it is not addressed in a tangible way by the shepherds of the Church, one tends to leave a “heretic” church (as pointed now by protestants) and leave for a more Orthodox one. Pax Christus, Joel

From:
Joel G Fernandes To:
Prabhu, Michael
Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2009 10:30 AM

Subject: FW: FR. JOE PEREIRA OF KRIPA FOUNDATION PROMOTING NEW AGE THROUGH YOGA AND MANIPULATION OF ESOTERIC “ENERGY” PRANA/CHI/KI

I forwarded this mail to our core team leaders. I am in my constant attendance at the Dubai Prayer Group, am yet to hear someone addressing New Age except well, myself, in Jebel Ali once. Joel Fernandes DUBAI

From:
Priest, Name Withheld
To:
prabhu
Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2009 11:27 AM

Subject: Re: FR. JOE PEREIRA OF KRIPA FOUNDATION PROMOTING NEW AGE THROUGH YOGA AND MANIPULATION OF..

Dear Mike, I have gone through the article in the TOI and was sad because it no more shocks to hear of such practices with the active connivance of the bishops themselves. I am sure even the so called Vatican II quote is done to suit ones pet doctrines. This falsity, lie or untruth can only happen with a yogi because he has managed to kill that conscience. They do not belong to that category of those who will be saved through no fault of theirs (I think it is (CCC 746) because the ones who will be saved would be people who follow their conscience while these yogis are like the cursed and dead tree which exist as tree but dead in every respect because they chose in their conscience to die to God and not to the things of the world. What can these dead speak to the church? Except death nothing else! May God have mercy on his church!

From:
Fr. James Manjackal
To:
prabhu
Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2009 1:00 PM

Subject: Re: Fw: FR. JOE PEREIRA OF KRIPA FOUNDATION PROMOTING NEW AGE THROUGH YOGA AND MANIPULATION

My dear Michael,

Just now I read from the newspaper “Deepika” that the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament (MCBS) is conducting a yoga retreat for children in Kerala, near Kalady. It is deplorable. The new age is spreading like cancer in our Church India, and the Bishops and the priest are not aware that cancer kills.

I wish you my child a very happy Easter and the blessings of the Risen Lord. Fr. James Manjackal MSFS, GERMANY

From:
Priest, Name Withheld
To:
prabhu
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 10:25 AM

Subject: Re: The Indian Church’s 64 AIDS treatment centres

“If they are, it would mean that the Indian Church has institutionalised the use of yoga.” Nicely put! Keep it up, Mike! I like the way some of these priests promote healing without any reference to the Sacraments. Even Fr. Britto SJ belongs to this category.

From:
Blazie Shetty
To:
prabhu michael
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 2:36 PM

Subject: Fw: FR. JOE PEREIRA OF KRIPA FOUNDATION PROMOTING NEW AGE THROUGH YOGA AND MANIPULATION…

Dear Michael thank you for the good job that you are doing. You need not fear any mortals for God is with you and no one can touch you unless the mighty one permits. Praise the Lord Your friend in Christ Jesus Blazie Shetty MUMBAI

From:
Name Withheld
To:
prabhu
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 4:43 PM Subject: Re: Fw: FR. JOE PEREIRA OF KRIPA FOUNDATION PROMOTING NEW AGE THROUGH YOGA AND MANIPULATION OF ESOTERIC “ENERGY” PRANA/CHI/KI

…I read it in the papers and had my reservations about the Laughing Buddha bit and other stuff. [Bishop’s Office]

From:
john menezes
To:
prabhu
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 5:32 PM

Subject: Re: NEW AGE PRIEST AND YOGI FR JOE PEREIRA

Dear Michael, I have known Fr. Joe Pereira since he was an assistant at the Holy Name Cathedral in 1974 …Twice when I have been present at his “mass” in the last 6 years, once at a funeral and another time at a wedding, he had brought in OM on the first occasion and a Mantra after “communion” on the second…. John Menezes MUMBAI

From:
pamela mathias
To:
prabhu
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 8:39 PM

Subject: Re: Fw: FR. JOE PEREIRA OF KRIPA FOUNDATIONPROMOTINGNEWAGE…

Hi Mike Thanks for your updates. How can we protest? … God Bless Pamela, Sydney AUSTRALIA

From:
leila aranha
To:
Michael Prabhu
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 11:16 PM

Hi Michael, …I am indeed shocked to read about Fr Joe Pereira and his yoga classes and with the blessing and approval of the Cardinal and the Mount Carmel Church in Bandra. My mother’s sister M Carmelita AC was the Superior General of the AC’s for 12 yrs. It is indeed shocking that priests and nuns are involved with New Age.

May God give them wisdom and discernment. Satan is so clever and cunning and innocent people do not find it wrong because nuns and priests themselves practice these evil things. May God bless you for all that you do for His Kingdom and for saving and warning Catholics about these dangers. My rheumatologist suggested I do yoga – I told him I am a Christian and it is not compatible with Christianity. I also have declined acupuncture twice from physiotherapists. Leila Aranha UK

From:
Priest, Name Withheld
To:
prabhu
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 9:03 PM

Subject: Re: FR. JOE PEREIRA OF KRIPA FOUNDATION PROMOTING NEW AGE THROUGH YOGA […] CONTINUED

By their fruit you shall know what manner of tree it is! alas for Fr. Joe’s lies!

Who will bell the cat???? Which Bishop? The cat seems to be bigger than the Bishops and now a Padma Shree!

From:
Sanctuary Intercessors – Fellowship of the Burning Bush, Mumbai To:
Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 4:41 PM

Subject: Intercession

Dear Brother & Sister Intercessors, Praise Jesus.
Thanks for all your prayers for India this month,we truly appreciate it.
Intercession: For many priest and nuns involved in new age practices of yoga, vipassana, reiki healing etc (one of the pioneering priests is Fr. Joe Pereira, Diocesan Priest).

For a New Community Bible that was released on the Jubilee of St Paul, which looks more like a New Age bible.

Details enclosed in file.
This information is given by Michael Prabhu who has a ministry exposing the evils of New Age in the Church.

From:
Priest, Name Withheld
To:
michaelprabhu@vsnl.net Sent: Thursday, January 20, 200X 8:26 PM

Thanks for your mail along with the attachments. I have just returned from my retreat [at a religious institution called “Atma Darshan” in Bombay Archdiocese], and I want to send you some material
that I cannot agree with… Because I know that your mission is to help root out wrong teachings, I am sending this to you in confidence… [Atma Darshan material sent to me by post]
From:
Priest, Name Withheld
To: michaelprabhu@vsnl.net
Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 9:07 PM

My Dear Michael,
Thank you for your mail. My first impulse was to thank God for people like you who are so dedicated in doing God’s Will. Yes the Holy Father desires that the challenges and heresy of the so called New Age is to be met head on. Unfortunately, few, if any, priests are prepared to spend time and money for the tremendous research and hard work that is required…
I am also involved in
“Christian Meditation”…
In fact I was about to ask you about Fr Joe Pereira. His Kripa seems OK
in so far as it helps people recover from addiction, but he is also a teacher of Ayanger Yoga and is at the moment in the USA.
My association with him is in the group in Mumbai known as
“Christian Meditation” This is a diocesan association
and seems OK because other priests are involved. He stresses John Main, a Benedictine monk who was influenced by an Indian Yogi. Have you done anything on John Main?

Michael, I will be very grateful to receive the fruit of your research which I know is very useful to my priesthood… With Blessings and prayers to yourself and the family. Love [see page 87]

D. SOME MEDIA PUBLICITY REGARDING FR. JOE PEREIRA/KRIPA

INDIA: THE LOTUS AND THE CROSS. RELEASE OF A DVD DOCUMENTARY

1.
September 2004. UNDER AN EASTERN CROSS VisionTV doc. tells the story of Christianity in India

http://visiontv.com/Programs/documentaries_India_Lotus.html

Father Joe Pereira
spent so much time helping others find their way that he began to feel a little lost himself.

A Catholic priest for more than 35 years, Fr. Pereira works closely with alcoholics and addicts in Mumbai, India. It is demanding work that allows little time for prayer and reflection – so little, in fact, that he began to feel cut off from his own spirituality. 31.

It was only when Fr. Pereira reached into Hindu tradition and started practicing yoga that he succeeded in reconnecting with his Christian faith. Now, he incorporates yoga into programs for people in recovery.

His story, in a way, is the story of Christianity in contemporary India – a faith that has revitalized itself by drawing upon the country’s many other vibrant spiritual and cultural traditions. This transformation, and
what it portends for the future of Indian Christianity, is the subject of the
VisionTV documentary India: The Lotus & The Cross.

The two-part presentation airs on
Wednesdays, September 7 and September14, 2004 at 10 p.m.

Toronto filmmakers
Rita and Vishnu Mathur
journey to present-day India to find out how Christians from all walks of life – educators, artists, clergy and nuns – are living their faith.

Christianity’s roots in India run deep. Indeed, the faith is said to have reached India in 52 AD – long before its beginnings in Europe – with the arrival of Saint Thomas, one of the Twelve Apostles. When the Portuguese landed in 1510, they were surprised to discover a Christian Church already present, with its own distinct customs and traditions. In the mid-16th century, the great Jesuit missionary Saint Francis Xavier was responsible for winning hundreds of thousands of converts to Catholicism. Today, there are approximately 22 million Christians in India – barely two percent of the population. (80 percent of Indians are Hindus, while roughly 14 percent are Muslims). The growth rate is extremely low. And the greatest danger confronting the faith is stagnation. Until recently, in fact, services were generally still conducted in Latin and mirrored familiar Western practices, which left many followers feeling alienated from the Church.

All this has begun to change in the last few decades, through a process known as
“inculturation”. The Catholic Church is becoming more “Indian” by absorbing rites and customs from the country’s other faiths. Indian Christianity gains strength now as it grows more deeply embedded in Indian culture.

“The people of a place should experience God through their [own] culture,” explains
Professor Noel Sheth, who heads a seminary [PAPAL SEMINARY, JNANA-DEEPA VIDYAPEETH or JDV, De Nobili College] in the city of Pune.

In The Lotus and the Cross, the Mathurs look at
some of the ways inculturation is changing traditional Catholic rites. They meet
Father Hilary Fernandes
of Our Lady of the Sea Church in Vasai, who first translated the Latin Mass into the Marathi language for the 1964 visit of Pope Paul VI.

And they visit a village in Goa where local songs and dances have become part of celebrating the Eucharist.

The filmmakers also profile some of those who put their Christian faith into practice by helping India’s neediest – among them Sister Christobel, founder of the charitable organization Mother Teresa’s Roses, which tends to the destitute on the streets of Mumbai. And they spotlight the work of creative people who are using art forms such as music and painting to portray Christian ideas in a distinctly Indian fashion.

They even drop in on a local Christmas celebration, a cross-cultural affair that includes both schoolgirl renditions of “Jingle Bells” and an Indian-style depiction of the nativity.

Says Rev. Dr. Seby Mascarenhas, Rector of the All India Mission Seminary [PILAR SEMINARY] in Goa: “Once you use [your own] culture to express your faith, it touches you. People really begin to feel it is our faith.”

MY COMMENTS:

1. Having virtually lost his faith in Christ and his vocation as a Catholic priest by his own admission in his press statements, Fr. Joe claims that he was renewed as a Catholic priest ONLY by “reaching into” paganism, in his words, “Hindu tradition”.

When he reached into Hindu tradition, “he succeeded in reconnecting with his Christian faith. Now, he incorporates yoga…” He came back a yoga enthusiast with a Kundalini yoga guru as his new Master. There is no external sign of his having

“reconnected with his Christian faith” except that he uses the Catholic Church to propagate his New Age practices.

2. “The Catholic church has generally blessed Pereira’s yoga work as an example of ‘inculturation’,” as in the case of the Hindu-ised inter-faith book called a “Bible”, the St. Pauls’ New Community Bible, published June 2008 with the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur of two senior Bishops including the Chairman of the Doctrinal Commission of the Bishops’ Conference.

3. Fr. Joe “has managed to maintain strong backing for his work from key Catholic leaders in India, including Mumbai’s Cardinal Ivan Dias, who is now prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.”
[see
page 20]

4. The above VisionTV story was the advertisement for a preview of a DVD titled “India: The Lotus and the Cross“.

The documentary was produced with the help of, according to the Acknowledgements, the Archbishop of Goa and a major seminary in Pune. Prominent Catholic priests in Bombay, Goa and Pune, including the heads of two seminaries were interviewed. This ministry’s report on the DVD, a documentary produced by an Indian-origin Hindu couple from Canada to show what they understand is the “inculturation” of the Indian Church but is in fact clearly shown to be its Hindu-isation, is available at
http://ephesians-511.net/documents/INDIA-THE-LOTUS-AND-THE-CROSS.doc. The documentary is a shame for any Catholic who is loyal to orthodoxy and to Rome. But, not for our Fr. Joe Pereira. According to the next report, see immediately below, Fr. Joe says, “The place was packed with people and many were surprised at what they saw.
Clergy members and even the Archbishop [of Goa] said
that the documentary was done well“. Read on.

2.
March 2005. THE INCULTURATION OF CHRISTIANITY
Goa Plus, Times of India, Goa

‘GOA PLUS’, the supplementary to The Times of India and The Economic Times’ Goa edition of 11-17 March 2005 carried a write-up by Ms. Cordelia Francis titled ‘THE LOTUS AND THE CROSS – THE INCULTURATION OF CHRISTIANITY‘ with two colour photographs, one of an ‘Indian Rite’ squatting Mass being celebrated by the
Pilar Fathers, and the other, a painting by Angelo da Fonseca showing ‘Mary in a sari’. I quote from the article:

“Pioneering priest
Fr. Hilary Fernandes
of the diocese of Mumbai dared to change the mass at his church. 32.

He changed the language, no one objected, encouraged, he replaced Western instruments like the violin with the tabla and enraged a congregation member who stabbed at the tabla to make his point- Indian classical music has no place in the Church. The enraged man obviously missed the point that Fr. Fernandes was making:

For Christianity to survive in India it has to adapt. Today Catholic priests openly admit that they feel more comfortable saying the Indian Rite Mass sitting on bare floors in simple shawls singing devotional songs and dancing to praise the Lord.
For non-Christians who attend the Mass, rich Indian sweets are distributed like prasad is at temples. At the
Papal Seminary
in Pune, students study world religions like Jainism and Buddhism.

Pilar Seminary in Goa teaches their students methods of quieting their mind with Yoga and Vipassana to help them deal with their vows of celibacy.

Witnessing the phenomenon of ‘Inculturation‘- how Hindu rituals and symbols are intermingling into the practice of Christianity
in India, documentary filmmaker Vishnu Mathur in his documentary ‘India: The Lotus and the Cross‘ delved into this sensitive topic to come up with some surprising revelations of how the Church in India is taking India forward. Mathur, the winner of awards like Hot Docs of Toronto, UNESCO’s Peace Prize, the New York Festival Award, Berlin’s Golden Ear, says, ‘In the West, people are fundamental about religion, but in India we are doing something right. We are witnessing the rejuvenation of Jesus’ message about love, peace and harmony’. The message Indian priests are sending out is that ‘We are Indians, not Romans’ and as religion is a living thing it has to evolve even when it goes back to the roots as it seems to be doing.

Rita Mathur, associate producer, writer and researcher points out some relevant historical facts; she says, ‘Jesus came from the Middle East. The early Christians did not light candles, they used incense sticks. The ritual of kneeling was adapted from the barbarians who genuflected before their king…’

We also hear the radical views of the Indian clergy on issues like celibacy, conversion, freedom of the Human Will. They strongly believe that
Catholicism, as practiced by the Vatican, has to adapt and change if necessary to the needs of people in the context of today’s world.

Like Fr. Joe Pereira of KRIPA, Goa who asserts,
‘Leave the choice of birth control to the conscience of the people’. The documentary has already been shown in Canada where Mathur lives, and last month in Goa at
Xavier Historical and Research Centre at Porvorim [a Jesuit institution].

He
says, ‘The place was packed with people and many were surprised at what they saw.
Clergy members and even the Archbishop said* that the documentary was done well‘.

* Here, Fr. Joe Pereira himself reports that the Archbishop of Goa attended the first screening of the film at the Jesuit centre in Porvorim in Goa, and approved of it. A month later there was this second screening in Goa.

In October 2005, I sent an email four times to the Archbishop, asking for his
comments and clarifications, along with a letter by post. For his response, see page 36.

MY COMMENTS:

1. Note that the report starts “Indian” with an “Indian Rite” squatting Mass, and Indianisation in dress and in music and musical instruments, and in language. The camel had gotten its nose into the tent. After that it is downhill all the way.

Distribution of sweets “prasada” to non-Catholics during Holy Mass at Communion time is a most serious aberration.

Eastern meditations like yoga [Hindu] and Vipassana [Buddhist] are taught at a seminary. “Hindu rituals and symbols are intermingling into the practice of Christianity.” It gets much, much worse, if that is possible. Read the report on the contents of the DVD, at
http://ephesians-511.net/documents/INDIA-THE-LOTUS-AND-THE-CROSS.doc, “India: The Lotus and the Cross“. As in the preceding report “UNDER AN EASTERN CROSS“, no one at all is able to decide whether they are discussing culture or religion, Indian or Hindu, lifestyle or faith. The terms are used alternatively, even interchangeably.

The confusion is understandable. Despite a wide range of local cultures, including tribal, the religion practised by the majority of Indians is Hinduism, or to be more precise, Brahminism.

2. As in the Ashram movement which is spearheading the Hindu-isation of the Church, and demanding autonomy for the Indian Church [see http://ephesians-511.net/articles_doc/CATHOLIC%20ASHRAMS.doc. for details], the priests of the Lotus and the Cross speak disparagingly of Rome: “Catholicism, as practiced by the Vatican…” Freedom is demanded to take decisions on issues like inculturation and priestly celibacy, and from the ‘rigid ritualism‘ in the present liturgy;

From:
prabhu
To:
Sent: Sunday, October 23, 2005 11:47 AM Subject: INDIA: THE LOTUS AND THE CROSS

Dear friend, I am preparing a critique on Vishnu Mathur’s film referred to above. Could you please give me your brief comments on its usefulness in terms of inculturation etc., along with your name and your field of work or service. I will be greatly obliged to hear from you. Yours sincerely, Prabhu

The Father Secretary to the Archbishop of Goa was on that invitation list. He did not respond. See page 36.

The responses were from two lapsed Catholics, one of whom is practicing Buddhism, and Fr. Joe Pereira!

FROM FR. JOE PEREIRA: From:
jpst_1995@yahoo.co.uk
To:
prabhu
Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2005 11:50 PM

Dear Prabhu, Since I am one of the characters depicted in the documentary, I wonder if my opinion will be of objective value. Anyway, briefly I just wish to state that Vishnu Mathur came at a time when the fundamentalist wave in India tarnished the secular image of India. Narendra Modi became an embarrasement not only to his own party but to the Human Race, bringing to mind only persons like Hitlar. This documentary has redeemed the image of India.

The ignorance of the Popular event hungry Media need to be dispelled by the truth about the beautiful land of Mother India where all religions feel at home. Christianity has been in India even before it came to the west and before the populare religious movements of Hinduism itself. The Educational Foundation of many Languages in India owe it to the Chrisian Missionary. And yet in this age and space we have to cope with martyrdoms of Rev. Grayham Steins! Mathur’s documentary makes Truth prevail. Regards, Fr.Joe

MY REPLY OF OCTOBER 30, 2005 TO FR. JOE PEREIRA:

Dear Fr. Joe, Thank you for your response. I have watched the DVD five times, and made a transcript of the same, but I do not find any connection between what you have written here, and anything that I heard or saw on the DVD, referring to the political overtones, I mean.

The DVD content concerns only the inculturation of Christianity, or to be more specific, of Catholicism, which is a good thing. Though I cannot agree with most of the recommendations, philosophies and practices that the DVD propagates. I will be sending my completed report next week to the concerned people in the Church as I usually do.

I had also published a report last month on the ASHRAMS MOVEMENT, and which contains one section devoted to your ministry through KRIPA Foundation. I am not sure that you would like to have it or read its contents.

For one thing, it is about 100 pages long, and the other is that our points of view are very different, opposing in fact..

With kind regards, Michael Prabhu

FROM FR. JOE PEREIRA: From:
Joe Pereira
To:
prabhu

Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 9:55 AM Subject: Opposing views?

Dear Michael, All that I have said is on contexual. The Documentary was done while Narendra Modi was at his game. Hence my comments that many NRI who were supporting Hindutva and RSS could get the real picture of the Chrisian community. In what way are your views opposing? As for your report, please send me a copy. YOu could do so by VIP post. I shall pay for it. I AM interested in every puplication that speaks about Kripa.

By the way, where are you based? India or abroad? Regards, Fr.Joe
34.

MY REPLY OF OCTOBER 31:
From:
prabhu To:
Joe Pereira
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 7:09 PM Subject: Reply

Dear Fr. Joe, I thank you for your kind and prompt reply.

From the different winter & Christmas scenes in the DVD, I got the impression that the film was made in November/ December 2004. But from what you say it must have been documented the previous year, 2003. Is that right?

Father, I do not take any money against my literature, but it will be my privilege to send you a laser-printed photocopy at once. However you forgot to tell me which address I should post it to. I send them free of cost to anyone who asks them and there are a few hundred on my mailing list. I also send them as Word docs. to several hundred people across the world. My website is also presently under construction and will have all information in a couple of weeks. I will be grateful if you give me the e-addresses of the other prominent persons (see list below) who were interviewed for the documentary so that I can send all of you soft copies together on receipt of your reply… Thanking you, Michael

From:
Joe Pereira
To:
prabhu
Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2005 10:11 PM Subject: Re: On the move

Dear Michael, After my north american tour, I am now visiting my centers in India. I will try and get some of the email ids for you. But most of them I do not have. My postal address is ………………. Joe

Fr. Joe had said the Archbishop had approved of the film. But this is what one of the lapsed Catholics wrote:

D.
From:
bevindac@yahoo.com
To:
prabhu
Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 11:12 PM

For one thing, it did not go over well with the spectators (it was an outdoor screening at St. Xavier’s Institute of Historical Research at Porvorim, Goa). Many were uncomfortable about the Indianisation of the Mass with special reference to the aarti and puja type service. 

On a personal note I understand that the Christian Church uses inculturation to spread its doctrine.

Hinduism however may have the last laugh because it may ultimately absorb Christianity in its vast spectrum and Jesus Christ may one day become one more avatar of Krishna. If I am not mistaken there was some talk years ago about how Krishna and Christ could be one and the same entity. Bevinda Collaco

From:
prabhu
To:
bevinda collaco
Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 12:54 PM

Dear Bevinda, I thank you for your very useful reply.

But to appreciate your comments better, may I know if you are a practising or lapsed Catholic, and if you were comfortable with the presentation or not? There are many opponents of this type of inculturation. May I have your opinion? Would you like me to send you a copy of the critique when it is completed? Thanking you again, Prabhu

From:
bevinda collaco
To:
prabhu
Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 9:33 PM

Dear Michael, I was disappointed with the presentation. I presumed there would be more questioning of reasons why the faithful had accepted the Indianisation of Christian ritual. I was disappointed because the inculturation dealt with ritual not spiritualism. I showed Mathur the Hanuman shrine at Panjim Market area which has an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus prominently displayed in it. This is not inculturation. This is a respect and tolerance of the tempo drivers for each other’s religions. I was born Roman Catholic. I enjoy the philosophy and scriptures of different religions but
the concept of God is I firmly believe, a creation of Man, as an answer to the inexplicable. Hope this answers your queries. Regards, Bevinda Collaco

5. CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE ARCHBISHOP OF GOA

I wrote to the Archbishop of Goa. Letter posted on 19^th; emails of 19^th, 23^rd, 25^th and 31^st October, 2005:

From:
prabhu
To:
archbp@sancharnet.in ; archbp@goatelecom.com

Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2005 7:34 AM Subject: URGENT AND IMPORTANT

KIND ATTENTION : MOST REV. FILIPE NERI FERRAO, ARCHBISHOP OF GOA AND DAMAN

A DVD, INDIA: THE LOTUS AND THE CROSS THAT WAS SCREENED IN GOA AND USES YOUR NAME

Your Grace,

1. Earlier today I have sent you a report on the NEW AGE in the CATHOLIC ASHRAMS in India. I have sent you similar reports on several occasions, both by post as well as by e-mail, but I have not received a single acknowledgement till date. These reports are widely circulated among Catholics in India and abroad, and to most of our Bishops, and are now being posted on several Catholic websites, including my own which is under construction.

2. As informed to you in the covering letter of my earlier email this morning, I have completed another report after a close study of the said DVD. If you have viewed the DVD, you would be aware that it contains statements and practices that are incompatible with Catholic orthodoxy and orthopraxis.

In particular, the
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS at the end of the film mentions ‘ARCHBISHOP OF GOA’, and I quote from the ‘GOA PLUS’, the supplementary to The Times of India and The Economic Times’ Goa edition of 11-17 March 2005: “The documentary has already been shown in Canada where Mathur lives, and last month in Goa at Xavier Historical and Research Centre at Porvorim. [Fr. Joe Pereira] says, ‘The place was packed with people and many were surprised at what they saw. Clergy members and even the Archbishop said that the documentary was done well‘.”

3. Your Grace, before I publish my report, I would like to have your comments. I would be very happy not to include the references to you in the report, if you would kindly explain to me your position on the said DVD. My intention is to create awareness among Catholics so that these errors do not gain popular acceptance among the faithful. May I request you to please reply at the earliest.

Yours obediently,
MICHAEL PRABHU, CATHOLIC EVANGELIST, CHENNAI,
www.ephesians511.net
35.

AFTER MY FOURTH EMAIL, I RECEIVED THIS RESPONSE FROM THE ARCHBISHOP THROUGH HIS SECRETARY:

From:
Diocesan Centre for Social Communications Media – Goa
dcscmgoa@gmail.com

To:
michaelprabhu@vsnl.net
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 7:10 PM Subject: URGENT AND IMPORTANT

Dear Mr. Prabhu,

Since the 25^th of this month, I have been trying to send you an email message written to you by His Grace Archbishop Filipe Neri Ferrao. I have had no success. I am sending it now through the email ID of our Social Communications Centre and I hope it goes through. Also find here below a specimen of the delivery failure notice we have been consistently receiving since the 25^th. In the meantime, we have received today yet another forward of your original email. The unintentional delay in getting back to you is sincerely regretted.

Kind regards,
Fr. J. Loiola
Pereira
Secretary to the Archbishop of Goa.

****************************************

Dear Mr. Prabhu,

I write to thank you for your various mails sent, as you mention, over the last three years, prompted by your concern for the Church. Right now, I have in my hands your e-mails of 19^th and 24^th of this month.

Let me start with the last ones: thank you for your greetings on my 26^th priestly ordination anniversary. I appreciate it and I reciprocate with sincere wishes for God’s abundant blessings on you, your family and your work. Regarding the attachment on New Age in Catholic Ashrams, while thanking you for it, I must say that I have not had the time to go through the lengthy material.

Coming to the DVD The Lotus and the Cross, the only information I have is that, many months ago, Mr. Mathur, the producer of the film, had informed our Diocesan Centre for Social Communications Media of his intention to do a film on Christianity in India. He even got a clearance from that Centre to capture some footage of a Mass celebrated in one of our churches. But when he actually did the film, it was with the collaboration of Pilar Seminary, Goa, among other institutions in the country. Frankly, I have not seen the film and the report that “even the Archbishop said that the documentary was well done” is evidently false.

With kind regards and every good wish, Sincerely,

+
Filipe Neri Ferrao Archbishop of Goa and Daman

MY COMMENTS:

1. The Archbishop denied attending the screening and seeing the film. That means Fr. Joe Pereira lied as usual.

2. The Archbishop’s Secretary, Fr. Joaquim Loiola Pereira, was one of those on the Mathurs’ email invitee list, and to whom I had written along with the others on the list on October 23, and received no response.

I now wrote to him, October 31, 2005, copy to the Archbishop of Goa:

Dear Rev. Fr. Loiola Pereira,

I thank you for your kind email on behalf of Archbishop Filipe which I received a few minutes after you sent it to me this evening. I will be writing to His Grace separately in the context of his letter to me…

Please refer to the following email.

I quote: From: ritavishnu@gmail.com
To:
aimsem@sancharnet.in; “Loiola Pereira, Father Joaquim” <loiola@sancharnet.in>; “Joe, Pereira”
jpst_1995@yahoo.co.uk; etc. etc.

Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 11:07 AM Subject: Invitation for a Documentary Film…. Unquote.

Father, I believe that the address above highlighted in red colour is yours, and, in this connection, I wrote to you and several of the other addressees [some of whom figure prominently in the Documentary] as follows.

I quote: From:
prabhu
To: Nn Sent: Sunday, October 23, 2005 11:47 AM Subject: INDIA: THE LOTUS AND THE CROSS

Dear friend, I am preparing a critique on Vishnu Mathur’s film referred to above. Could you please give me your brief comments on its usefulness in terms of inculturation etc., along with your name and your field of work or service. I will be greatly obliged to hear from you. Yours sincerely, Prabhu. Unquote

However I did not receive a response from you. I am now pleased to know that you are Secretary to the Archbishop, and I am sure that hereafter all my correspondence will be attended to by His Grace and faithfully acknowledged through your good self. God bless you. Yours obediently,
Michael Prabhu

3. I also sent this letter to the Archbishop, through Fr. Secretary, October 31, 2005:

KIND ATTENTION: MOST REV. FELIPE NERI FERRAO, ARCHBISHOP OF GOA AND DAMAN

Your Grace, I thank you for your long-awaited response.

Archbishop Emeritus Raul Gonsalves, your predecessor, had regularly written very encouraging letters to this ministry in response to the various communications and reports that I used to send him.

My report on the CATHOLIC ASHRAMS: May I submit to Your Grace that the situation is so serious that it warrants a careful examination of the contents of my report, despite its lengthiness? In my covering letter I have noted the four pages which will summarise the contents. I have also provided a helpful index to the contents.

I am confident that the Bishops need to look into the Ashram Movement which is doing incalculable harm to the Faith.

The DVD, INDIA: THE LOTUS AND THE CROSS: I believe your word when you say that you did not watch either of the two public screenings of the DVD of the film in Goa. Which means, as you agree, that Fr. Joe Pereira’s statement that you did, and his quoting you, are false statements. 36.

I
trust that it will not be a problem for you if I mention that, and your denial, in my report which will be ready in a few days time.

I myself had observed that the Pilar Fathers played an important role in its production, and have highlighted that in my report*. There is some footage of a Bishop or Archbishop celebrating Mass in a Goan Cathedral, but as I do not know what you look like, I could not decide who the Bishop in question is. In the list of ‘Acknowledgements’ at the end of the film, your title appears first, probably alphabetically [“Archbishop of Goa“]. The DVD assumes greater significance in the light of the
Seminar held last week at the Pilar Seminary*, and the press reports on the direction that the Indian Church is pointed to. We lay Catholics are very, very concerned. We understand that 5 BISHOPS and 400 priests have taken certain decisions at this Seminar, and these happen to be in line with what is happening in the ASHRAMS. So my forthcoming report on the DVD will include some information about this Seminar, and will be in some way an extension of the earlier ASHRAMS report.
*this is an error on the part of this writer. It should read as Papal Seminary, Pune. -Michael

I am glad and much relieved to know your position as stated by you in your letter of today, and I hope and pray that you and our other Bishops will exercise your authority as the corrective and teaching function of the Church.

If you have anything to say to me, I will be glad to hear it from you. Meanwhile the ASHRAMS report has reached over 75% of our Bishops and the CBCI Commissions, and this ministry has received several letters of encouragement as always. It is also just uploaded on my website:
www.ephesians-511.net. Yours obediently,
Michael Prabhu

*see Pilar Seminary report, now updated, at http://www.ephesians-511.net/documents/PILAR-SEMINARY-GOA.doc

1.
I took the decision to reproduce in the above pages my correspondence with the Archdiocese of Goa because I have not received a response to my letter [above] or my two reminders, and in view of the seminar held at the Papal Seminary, Pune [see Papal Seminary report, now updated http://www.ephesians-511.net/documents/PAPAL SEMINARY_NCB.doc]

From:
Bishop Thomas Dabre
To:
prabhu
Sent: Saturday, November 26, 2005 3:46 PM Subject: Michael

Dear Michael,

Greetings of Peace and Joy! Thank you for all your emails. I think I have written to you to say that I have received your study report. But I said it needs careful reading. In your report
regarding Fr. Joe Pereira
in which
I am supposed to be quoted from Vidyajyoti, but I don’t think it is from my article. You may please check the original. I appreciate your zeal for the faith and I also feel that people need to be guided and they need to be taught to integrate everything properly and smoothly into the faith, always giving first place to the faith. Otherwise there will be dangers which you seek to point out. Do pray for me as I do the same for you. Yours Sincerely,

Bishop Thomas Dabre 

From:
prabhu
To:
Bishop Thomas Dabre
Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2005 11:02 PM Subject: Re: Michael

Your Grace, Thank you for your gracious and encouraging response.

I notice that you have read my report very carefully, as you have referred to Fr Joe Pereira [mis]quoting you, which is on page 90. I am unable to verify the same from the Vidyajyoti journal as he does not specify the issue.

The Archbishop of Goa has also written to me denying a statement attributed by Fr. Joe to him.

I am confident that you will follow up on my report with the concerned people who are causing dangers to the Faith.

I also await your kind response to the other email with subject: PAPAL SEMINARY, PUNE- JUBILEE
which I sent several times and am sending again. I have written to the Bishops who I understand were present, but have received no responses. Yours obediently, Michael Prabhu

D. OFFICIAL PUBLICITY FOR FR. JOE PEREIRA/KRIPA AND THE WCCM IN THE EXAMINER, THE ARCHDIOCESAN WEEKLY OF BOMBAY [NEW AGE IN THE CHURCH MEDIA]

On pages 1, 11, and 15 of this report, we have already seen a few items copied from The Examiner issues of the years 2000 to 2002. The Examiner issue of January 27, 2001 actually carries a
write-up by Fr. Joe on the
World Community for Christian Meditation [meditation, mantras, left/right brain etc.]. On page 28 we see Fr. Joe write to one of my friends on behalf of the WCCM, and on page 3 he confirms his association with the WCCM. On pages 15-16 I have briefly showed that WCCM meditation is not Christian and can be New Age. More on the WCCM, pages 47 through 81. But next, I would like to record the total support that The Examiner, years 2003 to 2009, gives to the WCCM as well as to Fr. Joe and Kripa. 37.

Note that all their programmes are conducted on the premises of Catholic institutions that are supposed to safeguard Catholics from error and spiritual danger.

The Bombay unit of the WCCM is “The Christian Meditation Centre”. The following notification in The Examiner of January 27, 2007, is an example that shows the two are closely associated:

Local News:
Kripa Foundation and The Christian Meditation Centre, Mumbai, invites meditators*
and all those interested in the practice of Christian Meditation to a half-day programme of discourses and meditation on Saturday, February 10, 2007 from 9.30 am to 12.00 noon at St. Joseph’s Primary School Hall [Bandra]…

*Such advertisements are almost a weekly feature in The Examiner. The invitation is for all “meditators”. Since the records show that Fr. Joe is open to the use of all Eastern meditations, including yoga and vipassana, can one expect non-Christian practitioners of these meditations to participate in these programmes along with “Christian meditators”? YES [see pp 53, 62]

The Examiner: KRIPA/WCCM in “Local News” or “Forthcoming Events” and as articles, in chronological order from June 2003 to April 2009 with MY COMMENTS where necessary

On pages 1, 11, 15, we have seen references of publicity for Kripa/WCCM in The Examiner issues of years 2000 to 2002.

Christian Meditation seems to have really taken off in The Examiner from around August 2003

One might even say that The Examiner is a platform for promoting the activities of Kripa and the WCCM.

[A recheck of The Examiner back issues showed that I had missed several more entries than included here.]

One can see how closely linked Kripa and the WCCM are. Kripa is always one of the contacts for the WCCM programmes. It follows that if Kripa is New Age, so is the WCCM and “Christian Meditation”. And vice versa.

i) The Examiner, August 23, 2003: Programme on
Christian Meditation

EXTRACT: A one-day Programme on
Christian Meditation will be held at St. Joseph’s Primary School Hall, Bandra on August 30, 2003… contact Kripa Foundation

ii) The Examiner, August 23, 2003: Apparently this issue of The Examiner is dedicated to “Christian Meditation“.

But what type of “Christian Meditation“?

MY COMMENTS:

1. The cover picture is that of a young woman seated in cross-legged meditation in the yoga padma asana posture before a Jesus who is praying to the Father, significantly ON HIS KNEES. The Scripture slogan accompanying the visuals: “Be still and know that I am God!” Psalm 46:10. Remember what I commented on this issue on page 20?

2. The editorial by Fr. Anthony Charanghat, “Seeking the Spiritual”. It seems to be a promo for WCCM Christian Meditation.

Despite all the references to some mystics/saints and a Pope, we also see from the other paragraphs that the interest is in meditation in general and not on Scriptural [Biblical] meditation [see Psalm 119]:

“People today from all walks of life are seeking closer union with God, perhaps by learning the art of centering prayer or other meditation skills. The Time Magazine, August 4, 2003 reports that millions of people practice it every day… Watching your breath, chanting a word, focussing on sensations of the body are techniques of meditation being taught at centres of prayer to people of all creeds and professions… Even the rich and famous are resorting to meditation. To name just a few: Goldie Hawn, Shania Twain, Richard Gere and Al Gore…”

Centering prayer is not Christian. In ‘The
Danger of Centering
Prayer‘, Fr. John Dreher says “Its techniques are neither Christian nor prayer… It is essentially a form of self-hypnosis… The technique is not only futile, but objectively sinful” and involves “the
danger
of
opening
oneself
to
evil
spirits.” (This Rock, November 1997).

In ‘Centering Prayer: A Pastoral Perspective’‘, Fr. Emile Lafranz SJ., asserts, “It comes from Hinduism. And it is an attempt to reach an altered state of consciousness (A.S.C.). It is simply Transcendental Meditation in a Christian dress”. “A.S.Cs are induced either by drugs or by various mind-expanding techniques, particularly in the context of ‘transpersonal psychology'” (#2.2.3, Vatican Document on the New Age). So, Centering Prayer is clearly New Age.

“The heart of genuine Christian mysticism is not technique. It is always a gift from God.” (#3.4).

While the Vatican Document speaks lucidly about New Age mysticism, leaving no room for ambiguity, the 6-page cover story “New Age Prayer: Can Yoga, Meditation, Chanting and New Age Music bring us closer to God? ” (New Covenant, June 1989) succinctly concludes “Knowledge, understanding and prayerful discernment- these are our safeguards. When we are properly equipped, the deceptive practices of the New Age become clear.”

Why must a Catholic magazine publicize the meditations — which are surely not Christian — that Goldie Hawn or Richard Gere practise unless it has no moral judgements against them?

“Watching your breath, chanting a word, focussing on sensations of the body” – aren’t these exactly the techniques that the WCCM and its Mumbai leader, Fr. Joe Pereira propagate [see pages 1,2,3,5,7,11,12,16,17,29,30,42]?

I there is any doubt about what type of meditation The Examiner editor is promoting, the following 3-page article is:

3a. “A Pearl of Great Price” by Christopher Mendonca. Naturally, he writes about the WCCM’s “Christian Meditation“. The photograph accompanying this article too is of a female in the padma asana yoga posture [where are the traditional Catholic postures and joined hands?] with her hands/fingers in the upadesa mudra.

It is now painfully common to see Jesus called a guru or depicted as a yogi in Indian Catholic literature and art forms, seated in the yogi's traditional padma asana posture with his right hand exhibiting the upadesa mudra (meaning 'instruction through meditation and contemplation'), thumb and index finger forming a circle, three fingers extended upright. 

One who has himself attained enlightenment through sustained effort in the practice of meditation and yoga, and now disciples others in their similar quest, is a guru; and a yogi is one who does yoga to achieve its sole declared objective, unity with the impersonal Brahman.                                                                                                                                38.
				

We have seen already [page 15] what occult effect the lotus position used in yoga meditation is meant to achieve. 

The clear distinction between Creator and creature means that divine truth cannot be reached by human effort, but requires revelation. But in most eastern religions, truth is arrived at through a form of instruction that comes in meditation, by intuition and not through words, thought process, or reasoning. Jesus Christ is the eternal Word of God, and God has always taught and directed His people by His word. 

The upadesa mudra communicates what the guru himself has attained, and he communicates not by spoken words, logic or reason.  To call Jesus a guru or to depict him as a yogi is to deny his divinity and perfection and suggest he had a fallen nature subject to avidya and maya, from which he had to be liberated through the discipline of yoga.

The widespread use of the "Yesu Krist Jayanti" [for the Jubilee Year, 2000] logo with the hand of Jesus in an upadesa mudra actually misrepresented Jesus, equating the divine Wisdom of God with one who meditates in the hope of attaining divinity. This misrepresentation was further compounded by the printing and release of a special postage stamp featuring the very same logo, by the Indian Government on 25 December 1999. To get back to Christopher Mendonca's article:

3b. "One of the first things to understand about meditation is that the practice of meditation is an essential onslaught on the ego, so that we may be entirely free of the domination of the ego. The practice of meditation is extremely simple. You say a word. The word is taken from one's religious tradition, scripture or a short devotional phrase."

Now, if Mendonca and the WCCM were talking of genuine Christian Biblical meditation, they would never have needed to recommend selecting and using a word from any ["one's"] religious tradition, which means their meditations are also for meditators outside the Catholic tradition, underlined by their use of the lower case instead of a capital 'S' for scripture; or do they mean that Catholics, when practicing the WCCM brand of "Christian meditation" may select a word or phrase from say the Hindu religious tradition, e.g. "aham brahmasmi " [their "equivalent" of Psalm 46:10]. Either way, we are certain that this is not genuine "Christian meditation".

3c. Mendonca continues, "In meditative jargon, the word is called a mantra. As we recite it, we also begin to internally 'listen' to it. The word recommended is ma-ra-na-tha. When you sit down to meditate, you close your eyes gently and sit upright, and then in the deepening silence within you, you repeat the word, the mantra, Maranatha, for the entire time of your meditation. That is all. You listen to the mantra as you repeat it and you do not think about yourself – and that is the power of the mantra… The practice of praying with a mantra is much older than Christianity and is a feature of both Hinduism and Buddhism. This indicates the universal appeal of this way of prayer. Christians use mantras too." Mendonca goes on to suggest that the Divine Office and the Rosary are our mantras.

They are not. If one reads very carefully his explanation further above of the use of the mantra, one finds that the recitation of the Divine Office or the Rosary are totally different from the chanting Hindu- or Buddhist-origin mantra, which, as Mendonca himself admits – has a "power". See my comment no. 1 on The Examiner, February 24, 2007, page 42.

In "Christian meditation", there is no Jesus, no Scripture, no mind, no you. Read the above three sentences in bold red.

The core of the WCCM brand of "Christian meditation" is the mantra.
					Take it away and you've got nothing left.

iii) The Examiner, August 30, 2003: OFFICIAL. CHRISTIAN MEDITATION

The full page Official written by
Cardinal Ivan Dias
exhorts the Catholics of Bombay Archdiocese to take part in the programmes to be conducted in Mumbai by
Fr. Laurence Freeman
of the
World Community for Christian Meditation

+Ivan Cardinal Dias, Archbishop of Bombay

MY COMMENT:

A Cardinal, the Archbishop of Bombay, promotes the World Community of Christian Meditation.

iv) The Examiner, September 27, 2003: Christian Meditation Initiation [half page]

EXTRACT: About 50 participants gathered together at St. Joseph’s Primary School Hall, Bandra on Sunday 30^th August to begin their quest for ‘the pearl of great price’… One participant said she became less irritable and more understanding as a result of having tried to silence her ‘monkey mind’ by the recitation of the phrase “Maranatha”…

v) The Examiner, November 29, 2003: Christian Meditation Programme in Advent

The Bombay chapter of
The World Community of Christian Meditators will hold a one day programme at St. Joseph’s Primary School Hall, Bandra from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm on 13^th December, 2003… contact Kripa Foundation

vi) The Examiner, January 3, 2004: FULL PAGE BACK COVER ADVERTISEMENT

Three paragraphs on
Fr. Laurence Freeman OSB
who formed the
World Community for Christian Meditation in 1991.
He had helped Fr John Main OSB,
the inventor of “Christian Meditation” to establish the first Christian Meditation Centre in London in 1975.

SCHEDULE IN MUMBAI includes programmes
at
Mt. Mary’s Basilica
for Religious,
Our Lady of Salvation Church, Dadar, Mt. Carmel’s Church, Bandra, St. Francis Xavier’s Church, Ville Parle, Diocesan Seminary, Goregaon, St. Joseph’s Primary School Hall, Bandra. For registration, contact Kripa Foundation

MY COMMENT:

The Bombay church welcomes the World Community of Christian Meditation.

vii) The Examiner, January 10, 2004: OFFICIAL. CHRISTIAN MEDITATION

In a preceding Official, I had expressed the need of furthering spirit of deep recollection-meditation-contemplation during our liturgical services so that the sense of the sacred could be radiated in and through them.

I had also announced the visit of
Fr. Laurence Freeman OSB., leader of the World Community for Christian Meditation who could introduce us to the theory and practice of such a meditation. 39.

I am glad that Fr. Freeman will soon be in Mumbai and will conduct programmes on Christian Meditation for priests, religious, seminarians and the laity from January 12 to 18. The schedule has already been published in The Examiner. I warmly encourage all Catholics in the archdiocese to participate in these courses…

+Ivan Cardinal Dias, Archbishop of Bombay

MY COMMENT:

The Cardinal Archbishop of Bombay promotes the World Community of Christian Meditation.

viii) The Examiner, January 31, 2004: Meditation Training Programme to start. Meditation groups of
The World Community of Christian Meditation Programme at St. Joseph’s Primary School Hall, Bandra.

ix) The Examiner, February 7, 2004: Letter to the editor. Fr. Laurence Freeman‘s visit to Mumbai [full page]

EXTRACT: In the past 10 years, Fr. Laurence has visited Mumbai and conducted a two-day session on Christian Meditation. This year however, thanks to the initiative taken by Fr. Joe Pereira of Kripa Foundation, and the personal interest of the Cardinal Archbishop of Bombay, Ivan Dias, his visit has become the starting point of renewal.

…His week-long programme began with a discourse to the various Religious Congregations in the Diocese. About 300 religious attended this programme held at the Basilica of Our Lady of the Mount, Bandra… The next two days, Fr. Laurence went public, addressing congregations of lay people in two prominent parishes of the diocese after celebrating evening Mass. Since his visit was well publicised and had the personal backing of the Archbishop through a pastoral letter, these evening sessions drew people from places far beyond the confines of the parish itself. The effect this had was to have over 150 participants register for the 2-day intensive seminar to be held later during the week…

The Archbishop scheduled a special meeting of all the clergy of the diocese so that all his priests could avail themselves of the opportunity to be initiated into the practice of meditation… Fr. Laurence and the Archbishop had a long personal discussion on how this practice could be made available to smaller groups in parishes at the diocesan level. He was greatly encouraged by the support he received.

A one and a half day recollection to all the seminarians at the Diocesan Seminary which also caters to the surrounding regions meant that no section of the Church remained untouched by Fr. Laurence’s visit…

This we hope is the starting point to the Centre of our Being
which we are all called to make by Jesus…

Christopher Mendonca, Dadar

MY COMMENT:

The Cardinal Archbishop of Bombay promotes the World Community of Christian Meditation. All the clergy of Bombay, all the seminarians, and several major parishes are exposed to New Age.

x) The Examiner, March 20, 2004: Christian Meditation

Christian Meditation Group continues to meet every Thursdays at 7:30 pm for discourse/meditation at St. Joseph’s Primary School Hall, Bandra. All are welcome.

xi) The Examiner, May 8, 2004: The Venerable Bede by Fr. Laurence Freeman OSB

This is a two-page article on the life of Fr. Bede Griffiths OSB by Fr. Freeman, spiritual director of the World Community for Christian Meditation. The article is too long for me to reproduce here, except for a few salient points.

MY COMMENTS:

Fr. Freeman eulogises Bede Griffiths’ book, A New Vision of Reality.

Fr. Freeman says,
“Fr Bede acclaimed the wisdom and importance of John Main [the inventor of “Christian meditation”] and introduced the mantra as a Christian way of meditation to his own monks and visitors to his ashram at Shantivanam.”

So Bede, like John Main, used mantras as the basis of their meditation systems. They also knew each other very well.

According to Fr. Freeman “In 1991, Bede Grifiths led the John Main Seminar at New Harmony, Indiana and later published his [John Main’s] lectures in what was to be his last book, A New Creation in Christ.”

Fr. Freeman writes of Bede Griffiths’ “study of modern science… guided by mentors like
David Bohm and Fritjof Kapra” through which “he found signs of a reunion of religion and science.”

The “modern science” that Fr. Freeman refers to is New Age physics. Both Fr. Beded Griffiths’ “mentors”, Bohm and Capra are leading proponents of the synthesis of religion and science in the New Age Movement.

Bede attended a New Age conference in Europe, and Rupert Sheldrake, a prominent New Ager, wrote his New Age thesis New Science of Life while at Bede’s Shantivanam ashram in Tamil Nadu, India.

Fr. Lourdu Anandam inThe Western Lover of the East says that the use of New Age terminology is to be recognized without ambiguity in Bede’s A New Vision of Reality
that Fr. Freeman refers to in his article in The Examiner!

“Then, all the later writings, to which a bulk of the unpublished materials belong, use New Age terminologies as well as New Age thinking and there is a clarion call of the New Age,” adds Fr. Lourdu Anandam.

If Bede Griffiths had a positive opinion of John Main’s “Christian Meditation“, it is enough for any Catholic to want to stay away from it.

This writer has written in detail on the aspect of Fr. Bede Griffiths’ New-Age connections in his August 2003 (updated 2009) report on the Dharma Bharathi organizations. And in the report on New Age in the Catholic Ashrams, October 2005.

The reports also explain, with reference to the Vatican Document on the New Age, why the new paradigm of the “synthesis” or “confluence” or “reunion of religion and science” is New Age, and why Bohm and Capra are leading New Agers.

See also the related comments against the article in The Examiner, October 20, 2007, further below.

‘Venerable’, incidentally, is the honorific given a century after his death in 735 AD to the original Bede, the abbot of a monastery in England, who is regarded as the foremost historian of the Middle Ages. 40.

xii) The Examiner, July 24, 2004: Kripa Foundation – 23rd Anniversary

EXTRACT: Kripa Foundation
is marking its 23^rd anniversary with a live musical concert at St. Andrew’s Auditorium, Bandra on Monday August 7, 2004 at 7:30 pm…

xiii) The Examiner, September 4, 2004: Christian Meditation Orientation Programme

EXTRACT: A whole day Orientation Programme will be held at St. Joseph’s Primary School Hall, Bandra on September 11, 2004, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. Cost Rs 100…

xiv) The Examiner, January 15, 2005: Letter to the editor. Hope for the Woman Alcoholic [almost a full page]

EXTRACT: Though there are many Rehab Centres in Mumbai and India for men, unfortunately there is only one at Pune for men and women. This Centre at Pune known as Kripa Foundation, originated at Mount Carmel’s Church, Bandra, Mumbai, due to the unassuming, ebullient and philanthropic disposition of Rev. Fr. Joe Pereira…

The Kripa Foundation at Pune is run by a dynamic and spiritual personality in Rev. Fr. Freddy… F. Sanches, Mazagaon

xv) The Examiner, February 5, 2005: Christian Meditation – Initiation Programme

EXTRACT: Following the visit of Fr. Laurence Freeman to our parish last year, the Christian Meditation Centre of the Archdiocese of Bombay
will conduct a six-week initiation programme… in the Parish Hall of Our Lady of Salvation Church, Dadar beginning on February 10, 2005…

xvi) The Examiner, April 23, 2005: Christian Meditators Meet

EXTRACT: Christian Meditation Programme at St. Joseph’s Primary School Hall, Bandra on April 30, 2005, 9:00 am to 12:30 pm. Contact… Kripa Foundation…

xvii) The Examiner, May 14, 2005: Christian Meditation

EXTRACT: In keeping with the Archdiocesan initiative to promote contemplative prayer in the Church and encourage ‘silence’ in the Liturgy, the Christian Meditation Centre held a half-day programme …on April 30, 2005 at St. Joseph’s Primary School Hall, Bandra… There will be a training programme early in 2006 conducted by Fr. Laurence Freeman OSB. This ‘Essential Teaching Workshop’ will form the basis of training future animators of meditation groups…

xviii) The Examiner, June 18, 2005: Christian Meditation: Deepening the Practice

EXTRACT: A group of 25 gathered in the Sodality Meeting Room, St. Peter’s Church, Bandra on the 4th of June…

xix) The Examiner, June 25, 2005: Appointment of Fr. Joe Pereira

EXTRACT: Fr Joe Pereira, Managing Trustee, Kripa Foundation, Archdiocesan Consultant on Drug and Alcohol Abuse, has been appointed as Expert/Specialist Member to the Academic Committee of the National Institute of Social Defence, an autonomous organization of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India, New Delhi, with effect from 1^st June, 2005 for a period of two years…

xx) The Examiner, July 2, 2005: Christian Meditation Programme

EXTRACT: Christian Meditation Programme at St. Joseph’s Primary School Hall, Bandra on July 9, 2005, 9:30 am to 12:30 pm. Contact… Kripa Foundation…

xxi) The Examiner, July 30, 2005: Kripa Foundation – 24^th Anniversary

EXTRACT: Kripa Foundation, a project of the Archdiocese of Bombay
has 32 centres all over India caring for the chemically dependent. “Vision of a Brighter Tomorrow” a fund raising musical concert is being held at St. Andrew’s Auditorium, Bandra on Monday August 15, 2005 at 7:30 pm to celebrate 24 years of the support and care of Kripa…

xxii) The Examiner, July 30, 2005: Christian Meditation

EXTRACT: Christian Meditation Centre will conduct the next half day of teaching and silent meditation on August 6, 2005, 9:30 am to 12:00 noon in the Sodality Meeting Room, St. Peter’s Church, Bandra… Contact… Kripa Foundation…

xxiii) The Examiner, September 3, 2005: Christian Meditation Programme

EXTRACT: Christian Meditation Programme at St. Joseph’s Primary School Hall, Bandra on September 10, 2005, 9:30 am to 12:00 noon. Contact… Kripa Foundation…

xxiv) The Examiner, November 19, 2005: Christian Meditation Retreat

EXTRACT: Christian Meditation Retreat at Retreat House, Bandra… December 10 and 11, 2005… Rs 350 per participant. …Discourses of Fr John Main / Laurence Freeman… Register with Kripa Foundation…

xxv) The Examiner, January 28, 2006: Christian Meditation Initiation

EXTRACT: About 60 people attended an introductory session to Christian Meditation in the
parish hall of St. Joseph the Worker,
Bandra East on Saturday January 21, 2006.

Thanks to the initiative of Gratian D’Souza and the encouragement and support of the parish priest, the six week programme of initiation into Christian Meditation will begin on Saturday January 28, 2006 at 7:30 pm. It will run for six consecutive Saturdays… The duration of each session is about an hour…

xxvi) The Examiner, February 15, 2006: Christian Meditation Programme

EXTRACT: Christian Meditation Programme at St. Joseph’s Primary School Hall, Bandra on March 11, 2006, 9:00 am to 6:00 pm. Cost Rs 100. Contact… Kripa Foundation…

The Examiner, March 4, 2006: Christian Meditation Programme

xxvii) EXTRACT: Christian Meditation Programme at St. Joseph’s Primary School Hall, Bandra on March 11, 2006, 9:00 am to 6:00 pm. Cost Rs 100. Contact… Kripa Foundation…

xxviii) The Examiner, March 25, 2006: Christian Meditation Programme

EXTRACT: Christian Meditation Programme at the Diocesan Pastoral Centre Hall, Bandra on April 1, 2006, 9:30 am to 12:00 noon. Contact… Kripa Foundation… 41.