Whither Kerala Church?

By Chacko Antony

Sahibganj, Oct 27, 2022: Soul searching queries like, “Whither Kerala Church?” Or “Is it withering away?” are troubling many Christians in and outside Kerala. I am one of them.

As a Keralite, I was born in the Syro-Malabar Church. As a teenager in 1950s, while serving as an altar boy, I had the trauma of mumbling replies in unknown Syriac to the priests’ Syriac Mass without understanding what I was mumbling. It was something like playacting.

Some of the faithful who ‘saw’ the Mass but did not feel any devotion had their rosary in hand and knelt before the statue of St. Antony, the patron saint of our church. Thank God the Syriac language was shelved and vernacular language, Malayalam, took over on July 3, 1962, which helped for a slightly better participation of the faithful in the Eucharist.

Even with that window-dressing, the faithful were treated as a particular class that could not deserve to see the Eucharistic being re-enacted by the celebrant with his back to the people. The justification for this was drilled into me in 1976 by my ordaining Bishop Joseph Powathil of Changanacherry. On the eve of my ordination, I approached him asking if I could celebrate my first Mass facing the people. Out came a thunderbolt reply coaching me into the theological ramifications of the Eastern Rite.

He told me, “The Eucharist is a mystery. It should not be seen by the faithful. If they see it, the mystery effect will not have any value, etc.” It was a ten-minute nonstop lecture. In my outlandish simplicity I told him, ‘Your Lordship, Jesus Christ instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper sitting around with his disciples…” Out came his reply with a Chaldean stern look, “That is your Latin theology. You are here. You follow what we say.” Full stop!

Just the previous day I had approached the parish priest asking for his opinion about celebrating the Eucharist facing the people. His reply was that he had no problem, but it would be advisable to take the matter to the ‘Bishop’s Palace.’ So, the priest had no problem. But the bishop had.

Even after 46 years as a Catholic priest, the shock of the diktat has not died out in me. I see the simmering ‘problem’ has now gathered storm clouds over the Kerala Church. One cannot say whether the storm clouds will just end up as a cloud burst or whether they will turn into a torrential downpour with unforeseen consequences like a dam burst.

The recent happenings in the Kerala Church over rite and ritual have not projected a healthy Church. Allegations and counter allegations, arguments and counter arguments, strikes and dharnas (sit in) and now chain hunger strike are all unfortunate happenings.

Father Varghese Alengaden, who visited the site of the hunger strike, described the situation in the Kerala Church as drifting away from the Jesus way.

“The problem that Church faces today, whether it relates to liturgy or any other issue, is because we have drifted away from the way of Christ…Jesus came not to start an imperial institutional Church. He came to give us a new way, The Way! … Rather, the Church is being run as a corporation.”

There is some substance in Father Alangadan’s words. His lamenting the Church’s dictation of postures and movements in the celebration of the Eucharistic is a noteworthy point. It is indeed true that we are busy with peripheral issues rather than grappling with so many crucial national issues affecting ground realities. The persecution of Christians in the north, burning of churches, lynching mobs running amok, attempts to torpedo the Indian Constitution, rising unemployment, rising poverty, rise of fundamentalist nationalism – all these and more – don’t seem to affect the heart and head of the Church in Kerala.

There is a news item going viral on social media that the ‘RSS joins hands with Christian communities in Kerala to form a new association, ‘Save our Nation India.’ Given the factionalism in the Church, the RSS is finding a good grazing ground. Will the Church authorities be bowled over by agenda based overtures of the Sangh Parivar and leave the faithful to become victims of the predators?

If that happens, the authorities will never be forgiven by Jesus Christ who once went in to the house of God on a cleansing drive with whip in hand to chase out the unholy elements by saying, “My house shall be called the house of prayer; but they have made it a den of thieves.”

To avoid such eventuality, the Church of God needs to realize that rituals, however time-honored, are but peripherals when it comes to following the Jesus way. Chaldean or Roman the Church may be, but Jesus was a Jew. He was not a priest. He did not indulge in advocating rubrics and rituals. He celebrated the Eucharist in a simple way by having his disciples around him. The mystery was Jesus himself. Not the rubric that the priest does hidingly by turning his back to the participants.

One wonders how theological are the mystifying theories and explanations about Eucharist as a mystery that should not be seen by people. If Syriac as language of Mass could be changed for Malayalam for better participation, why can’t a priest say Mass facing the congregation? That was what Jesus did at the Last Supper.

As Father Varghese Alengaden says, let those who want to offer Mass facing the wall, let them do it their way, but let those who want to offer Mass facing the people, let it be their option. Clinging on to traditional theories like leeches will not solve the problem of dissension and differences of opinion. The traditionalists ought to realize that the Jesus way is not the one of the stick and the carrot, nor diktat and dominance.

They should also have the honesty to admit that the Pope, head of the Catholic Church, celebrating the Eucharist by facing the congregation is following the Jesus way. Otherwise, in their eyes the Pope too remains condemned for desecrating or demystifying the mystery aspect.

The Chaldean or the Orthodox Church came much later as a human institution taking after Jesus Christ. To turn these institutions into fundamentalist organizations which tend to feed their followers with imperial diktats and mystifying interpretations is but denying Jesus Christ entry into the Church premises.

(Jesuit Father P A Church serves the Church in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand.)