CAA against secular fabric of country: Archbishop of Goa Filipe Neri Ferrao

In the statement, Archbishop of Goa Filipe Neri Ferrao appealed to the Centre to immediately and unconditionally revoke the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and desist from implementing the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register.

Panaji (Goa): Archbishop of Goa Filipe Neri Ferrao, on behalf of the Catholic community in the state, released a strongly-worded statement on Saturday appealing to the Centre to "immediately and unconditionally revoke the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and desist from implementing the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register".

In the statement, the Goa Archbishop stated "The very fact that CAA uses religion, goes against secular fabric of the country. It goes against the spirit and heritage of our land which, since times immemorial, has been a welcoming home to all, founded on the belief that whole world is one big family."

"The CAA, the NRC and the NPR are divisive and discriminatory and will certainly have a negative and damaging effect on a multicultural democracy like ours," the document read.