Gandhi award for Episcopal priest in US

A Los Angeles-based Episcopal Church priest was conferred the 2009 Mahatma Gandhi Award for the Advancement of Religious Pluralism by the Hindu American Foundation (HAF).

The Reverend J Jon Bruno, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, was nominated for the award for "electrifying Hindus last year after issuing a formal apology for centuries-old acts of religious discrimination including attempts to convert them."

At the foundation's sixth annual Capitol Hill banquet, accepting the award behalf of Bruno, officer of Ecumenical and Inter-religious Concerns of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, Reverend Dr Gwynne Guibord, said it was a "special and unexpected" recognition.

Bruno, who was unable to be present, sent a letter expressing gratitude for recognition of efforts "to build bridges of cooperation between the great religious traditions ... [and] assist you as your community strives for justice and equality," reported the Episcopal News Service.

"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," he said.

"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."

Bruno committed to working together to put 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."

The HAF is an American Hindu human rights group advocating on behalf of the Hindu community in the United States. It was founded in the year 2004.