AGRA, Oct 14 — In a virtual climbdown amid widespread criticism on its demand for “swadeshi churches”, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) today said Christians should at least accept that there can be “salvation outside the Church also”.

Condemning a Vatican document presented during the World Peace Summit held recently in New York which said there can be no salvation outside the Catholic Church, the RSS spokesman Mr M.G. Vaidya, said “Such intolerance breeds social tension.”

Stating that the idea of “swadeshi church” was only to bring people closer, Mr Vaidya, who was a teacher with a college run by a Scottish church, told reporters, “They (Christians) should at least accept that there can be salvation outside the Church too.”

On a specific question whether the RSS was no more in favour of “swadeshi churches”, the RSS spokesman said “Yes, they (Christians) should at least accept that there are many paths of salvation.”

On the RSS’ demand for indigenisation of Islam, he said “even in Islamic countries like Iran and others, people revere Rama and Krishna as their ancestors.”

He further stated that “religions should bring people closer and the indigenisation of churches and Islam will help a great deal in this.”

The whole controversy had cropped up after the RSS chief, Mr K.S. Sudarshan, during his traditional Vijayadashami address at Nagpur on October 7 had demanded that “swadeshi churches” should be built in the country.

“Why are these foreign churches allowed to carry on their activities on our soil?” he asked, urging Christians to set up “swadeshi churches” on the lines of Orthodox Syrians Church and Marthoma Church of Kerala.

Unlike the Catholic Church, the two have nothing to do with the Vatican.

Mr Sudarshan asked them to emulate China and see to it that all foreign churches and missionaries working on “Indian soil” were “evicted.”

Christian leaders had expressed outrage at the RSS chief’s remarks. They alleged the “innocuous sounding call was part of a plot to restrict the freedom of minorities and fuel suspicion that non-Hindu minorities were somehow not patriotic.”