By Jose Kavi
New Delhi: An ecumenical women’s forum says the inclusion of women for the feet washing ritual will help the Indian Church offer a healing touching amid clergy abuse cases.
A symbolic representation of “inclusion liturgy” celebrated in parishes and Mass centers across India “will have a healing effect especially in the light of the recent instances of the scandal of sexual abuse in the Church,” asserts the Indian Christian Women’s Movement (ICWM).
The movement comprising members from all Christian denominations has expressed dismay over the decision of India’s Oriental Catholic Churches to keep women out of on Holy Thursday.
Emulate Pope Francis and make the Church inclusive, the movement urged Catholic bishops of all three Catholic rites in India through a letter dated March 31.
The moment hailed Pope Francis’ initiative to include “all people of God” in the ceremony of the washing of the feet on Holy Thursday as one of the most encouraging signs of inclusiveness and equality in the Church.
The letter was drafted after the Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara Churches, the Oriental Catholic rites in India, decided to stick to their tradition of washing the feet of only men or boys on Holy Thursday. The ritual that falls on April 13 this year commemorates Jesus washing the feet of his disciples during the Last Supper.
The women’s movement says including women for the ritual will help the Church present a different face. At least three Catholic priests were arrested in the past year for sexually abusing minors in Kerala, where the two Oriental rites are based.
The ICWM leaders say the Syro-Malabar Church’s decision to stick to the tradition for the Holy Thursday ritual has saddened them. The Synod of Bishops has instructed its parishes to continue the practice of the washing of 12 men or boys, says a circular Cardinal George Alencherry, the head of the Church, issued on March 26.
The ICWM letter commended dioceses and parishes that included women for the washing of the feet last year. “It is our prayer that this year more dioceses and parishes may take this cue and implement this single-most inclusive liturgical practice pioneered by Pope Francis,” adds the letter from the movement that has members from all Christian denominations in the country.
A Vatican decree Pope Francis issued on January 6, 2016, introduces significant changes in Holy Thursday’s Foot Washing Ceremony. It urges pastors to select people representing the variety and the unity of people of God. They could comprise men and women, young and old, healthy and sick, clerics, consecrated men and women and laity.
Virginia Saldanha, a lay woman theologian and an ICWM official, told Matters India April 3 that they have decided to send the letter to the presidents and bishops of all three rites as several Latin rite bishops have also rejected the Pope’s proposal. In some cases where bishops have accepted the proposals, parish priests have refused to implement them.
“Misogyny is across the board,” regretted Saldanha, who remarked that some Church leaders were focused more on women’s dress than man’s attitude toward women. She was referring to a recent pastoral letter of a Kerala bishop asking women to come to church in full-length dresses.
The women’s movement wants the bishops issue “clear instructions” to parish priests” on the occasion of the Chrism Mass. Such guidelines will inspire the priests to catechize the laity and implement the practice in their parishes.
The Chrism Mass manifests the unity of the priests with their bishop. The bishop gathers all priests of the diocese at the cathedral to celebrate the Mass. Most dioceses will celebrate the Chrism Mass on April 11 this year.
Maintaining that they understand that the changes are not applicable to the non-Latin Churches, the ICWM leaders plead the Syro Malabar Synod of Bishops to revisit look afresh at the possibility of emulating the Pope’s example.
Similarly they also appealed the Synod of the Syro Malankara Church to direct its pastors to include all people of God in the ceremony of the washing of the feet.
The women’s collective says the Pope set the example of inclusiveness and equality since he took over as the head of the Catholic Church in 2013. His “powerful interventions” have made the Church “visibly and symbolically more inclusive.”