Mumbai: St Peter’s Church Aims To Bring People Together With Bus Tour

On Sunday a group of people will undertake a bus tour of three important shrines in the Bandra-Khar area: the Ramakrishna Mission Math, the Sri Guru Singh Gurudwara and a Jain temple.

The visit is part of the mission of the multi-faith committee of Bandra’s St Peter’s Church to create bonds among people of different religions.

Father Aubrey Mascarenhas, former spiritual adviser for the programme, said, “The aim of the tour is to get our Christians to be better acquainted with the beliefs of people of other faiths, their religious practices and their prayers.”

First trip after three years

Brian D’Souza, a worshipper at St Peter’s Church and a member of the Mumbai Roman Catholic Church’s Archdiocese Commission for Interreligious Dialogue, said that although the church had conducted such tours in the past, Sunday’s trip was the first after three years of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“So this a tour after a long time. We decided to cover places not covered earlier,” said D’Souza.

A member of the century-old Math said: “It [the tour] is a great idea. The idea behind the tour is similar to the teachings of the Ramakrishna Mission, whose message is of humanity to live in peace and harmony. The real meaning of religion is to work for the common cause of humanity and its betterment.”

About 30 people are expected to join the tour and participants include practitioners of different religions, including Hinduism, Islam, Jainism and Zoroastrianism, although the majority are from the Catholic faith.