Bishop John J. Keane: In Defense Of Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda’s first three speeches at the Parliament of Religions in 1893: ‘Response to Welcome’ (September 11), ‘Why We Disagree’ (September 15), and ‘Paper on Hinduism’ (September 19), were respectively an appeal for tolerance or acceptance, an appeal for interfaith understanding, and a profound exposition of Hinduism.

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Introduction

Swami Vivekananda’s first three speeches at the Parliament of Religions in 1893: ‘Response to Welcome’ (September 11), ‘Why We Disagree’ (September 15), and ‘Paper on Hinduism’ (September 19), were respectively an appeal for tolerance or acceptance, an appeal for interfaith understanding, and a profound exposition of Hinduism. But it was a different story on September 20 (‘Religion not the Crying Need of India’). That was a speech accusing the Christian missionaries in India of trying to save the souls of the heathen instead of trying to save their bodies from starvation. He was not scheduled to speak that night. It was a fortuitous coincidence that some of the speakers didn’t show up and the audience persuaded him to take the podium. The Chicago Inter Ocean of September 21 reported the following as to what happened just prior to his actual speech: