Bengaluru’s closed church reopens, new priest appointed

Bengaluru: A Catholic church in Bengaluru that was closed more than five months ago because of a controversy has been reopened and the local archbishop has appointed a new pastor a day before a deadline set by a court ended.

Archbishop Bernard Moras of Bangalore on September 28 appointed archdiocesan financial administrator Fr Martin Kumar as the temporary parish priest of St. Paul the Hermit Church at Nagenahalli, a northern suburb in the capital of Karnataka state.

On September 20, the Karnataka High Court had directed Archbishop Moras to reopen the church on September 26 and to depute a priest by September 29 to start services in the church and to serve the parishioners’ pastoral needs.

The 75-year-old prelate had closed the church on April 21 after its parishioners defied his order and unveiled the bust of a controversial priest.

The archbishop told Fr Kumar that he was appointing him the priest-in-charge of the church with effect from September 29 until further orders. “We are (in) the middle of the year and it is not possible for me to find a priest to be resident in the parish,” the prelate said in his September 28 letter to Fr Kumar, who is currently based at the Archbishop’s House, some 20 km south of Nagenahalli.

“You will attend to all spiritual needs of the parish, such as Mass, Sacraments etc,” the letter says. It has also asked the priest to attend to the spiritual needs of St Thomas Church at Kanakanagar, a substation of the Nagenahalli parish.

The prelate has permitted Fr Kumar to take assistance from other priests, if necessary. “You shall not bring any changes in schedule of Masses or practices in the parish without consulting me,” says the letter that wants Fr Kumar to offer Mass at 6 pm on September 29.

The High Court also directed the administration to keep the controversial bust of Fr Chowrappa Selvaraj, popularly known as Fr Chasara, covered in a wooden case.

“We are extremely happy that we can have Mass and prayers now in our church,” says Fathima Mary, secretary of Legion of Mary in the parish. She said the parishioners have been praying at the church for the past five months.

“We cleaned the church on September 26, the day the High Court ordered the church opening. We will clean again today,” she told Matters India hours before the church was to offer Mass on September 29.

Mary, who has been living in the parish for the past 42 years, said the parishioners had closed Fr Chasara’s bust completely. “That was the court order to resume services in the church,” she added.

K A Vikram, a prominent lay leader in the archdiocese, said, “Finally God has heard the prayers of the people. Denying people’s spiritual needs is not right. Jesus belongs to all and we cannot keep him away from people.”

Vikram regretted that the case has allowed the court to intervene in church matters. “I warn you the Church will be ruled by the government within 25 years,” he told Matters India.

Archbishop Moras had approached the High Court against an August 8 interim order of the Bengaluru City Civil Court that asked him to reopen the church and appoint a priest to conduct services in the church.

He had earlier taken recourse to canon law to close the church after the parishioners ignored his warning against erecting the bust in the church premises. He had asked the parishioners to abandon their plan to unveil the bust two days before the church’s closure.

Fr Chasara, who had led the Kannada faction in the archdiocese, died on March 16 after battling several illnesses. The Nagenahalli Catholics insisted keeping the 60-year-old priest’s bust in their church compound to pay respect to a person, they claimed, had done yeoman service for their socioeconomic advancement.

The archbishop then asked Fr Vincent Santhosh, who was the then pastor, to remove the Blessed Sacrament from the church, lock it and report to the archdiocesan headquarters.

“No sacrament may be celebrated in the church till this sanction is lifted,” the canonical decree said. Archbishop Moras further declares that the church “will remain closed until the bust of Fr Selvaraj has been removed from the church compound and the parishioners promise in writing to abide by my orders and the laws of the Church.”

The archbishop had told the lower court earlier that the appointment of a priest to a church is entirely the religious prerogative of the Catholic Church and that the court has no jurisdiction in the suit as the Constitution of India guarantees religious freedom of its citizens.

The court said India has no statutory law for Christians as the country has not framed any exclusive law for Christian Churches. “Consequently any dispute in respect of religious office in respect of Christians is also cognizable by the civil court,” it asserted.

The court also dismissed the claim that Christians stand on a different footing in the country. “Suffice it to say that religion of Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains or Parsee may be different but they are all citizens of one country which provides one and only one forum that is the civil court for adjudication of their rights, civil or of civil nature,” it asserted.

The parishioners had contended that they the right to protest is a fundamental right guaranteed by the country’s constitution. No force on earth can stop the protestors from protesting against a wrong.

The lower court had also said the court has to weigh public interest against private interest while giving its orders.

The court also saw no violation of canon in the installation of the controversial priest’s bust in the church premises. The section 1187 of the Canon Law that the archbishop quoted in his order reads: “Veneration through public cult is permitted only to those servants of God who are listed in the catalogue of the saints or of the blessed by the authority of the Church.”

Earlier on June 20, the City Civil and Sessions Court had through an injunction order to open the church.