Muslim Bangladesh goes gaga over Catholic cardinal

For a country long accustomed to being overshadowed by its mammoth regional neighbors India and Pakistan, the choice by Pope Francis to give Bangladesh its first-ever cardinal set off a national surge of pride that shows no signs of abating.



Cardinal Patrick D'Rozario with Bangladesh Prime Minster Sheikh Hasina. (Credit: Photo courtesy of the Archdiocese of Dhaka.)

Nirmala Carvalho
December 27, 2016

MUMBAI, India - Bangladesh is the fourth largest Islamic country in the world by population, with almost 150 million Muslims, representing a robust 86 percent of the country’s total. Its Muslim ethos is clear, including a 1988 constitutional amendment declaring an “Islamic way of life” as a basis for national identity.

Yet right now, Bangladesh is basically going gaga over a Catholic cardinal.

In November, Pope Francis tapped Archbishop Patrick D’Rozario of Dhaka, the nation’s capital, as the first-ever cardinal from Bangladesh. In a country long accustomed to being overshadowed by its mammoth regional neighbors India and Pakistan, the choice set off a national surge of pride that shows no signs of abating.

The honor also came at a time when Bangladesh was still reeling from a July terrorist attack, the worst in the country’s history, involving a siege in an affluent neighborhood of Dhaka that left 29 people dead and instilled fear that the religious extremism long troubling the rest of the region had finally arrived at home.

https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2016/12/27/muslim-bangladesh-goes-gaga-catholic-cardinal/