Storm brewing over alleged anti-church documentary

A storm is brewing over a series of educational CDs published by the Kerala government, which according to Christians portrays church in bad light.

They alleged that a CD titled 'The Wound' distributed to serve as teaching aids in schools was to 'malign' the church, eyeing the elections.

The Syro-Malankara Catholic Church in a statement urged the Education Department to withdraw from its anti-Christian posture.

"The Church is concerned and pained, and strongly protests, the persecution of one religious community," Catholicos Moran Mor Baselios Cleemis, head of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, said.

The controversial CDs can be seen only as a continuation of the insult meted out by the Department to the Church during the past two years, Cleemis said.

Meanwhile, Director of Public Instructions has ordered a probe and also placed under suspension a teacher based in Kodakara in Thrissur for allegedly distributing the CD.

Education Minister M A Baby on Monday said that the film was not meant as a study aid and that it had made its way mistakenly into a CD while downloading.

The Church has opposed to all three CD's, 'Murivu', 'Typewriter' which is alleged to be offensive and "The Wound" which narrates the story of a boy who was struck by grief when a lamb gifted to him by a wounded man was run over by a car in which a person dressed like a bishop was traveling.

The involvement of the Communist government in Church activities apparently has placed both at loggerheads from recent past. Last year, thousands of faithful joined protests and demonstrations against a controversial social studies school textbook that allegedly glorifies atheism, communist ideas and revolutionary violence.

Christian leaders criticized the ruling party for introducing textbooks in schools that contained lessons that would encourage the younger generation to backslide and discard religion.

The new curriculum was part of the govt. maneuver to inculcate Communalist ideologies in the minds of young people, they said.