Hundreds of bibles have been burned, destroyed or damaged in the wake of the barbaric violence directed against Christians in Orissa. For this reason, Indian Christians have launched a campaign to collect and distribute 1,000 new bibles to the faithful of East India. The bibles will be delivered to Mgr Raphael Cheenath, Archbishop of Cuttak-Bhubaneshwar, who over the past few weeks had criticised the destruction of a number of texts of the Sacred Scripture reporting the lack of bibles in his diocese and reminding that the Word of God is the fundamental instrument to give hope and courage to the distressed population of Orissa. The bibles donated to the people will be in the Oriya language, which is the language spoken in Orissa, so that they could easily get close to the Sacred Scripture again. "It is a campaign to show we are close to and sympathetic with the Christians who are being persecuted and deprived of their fundamental rights," says the Catholic Secular Forum, one of the NGOs which is supporting the initiative and is working for the defence of Indian Christians even through information. This organisation has already sent dozens of volunteers to bring humanitarian aid to refugees in the Orissa territory. ” ” ” “
