I send my greetings and best wishes to the Board of Directors and to the members of the Hindu American Foundation, on the occasion of your sixth annual Capitol Hill Reception. I am grateful for your kind expression of appreciation for my efforts as Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles to build bridges of cooperation between the great religious traditions.
As Mahatma Gandhi taught, co-operation and trust require a sincere commitment to truth. Mindful of our duty to the truth, I believe that the world cannot afford for us to repeat the errors of our past, in which we Christians often sought to dominate rather than to serve. In order to take another step in building trust between our two great religious traditions, I renew the apology that I have offered to the Hindu community for the religious and racial discrimination that Christians have directed towards Hindus for far too long. Such discrimination is wrong; it is a sin. There is no justification for it.
On behalf of the Diocese of Los Angeles, we pledge our efforts to assist you as your community strives for justice and equality. We commit ourselves to working for an end to racial and religious discrimination against Hindus. We desire to work together in the great divine task of our time: to build reconciliation and peace, honoring the God-given dignity of each person, sharing and learning the Wisdom of each other’s traditions, recognizing God’s equal love for each of us, and sincerely responding to God’s desire to bring us together into one human family, rich in diversity and mutual respect.