By Matters India Reporter
Kochi, Aug 29, 2023: A Catholic archbishop and a priest in the southern Indian state of Kerala are set to face contempt of court proceedings for refusing to permit church marriage of a Catholic couple in violation of a court order.
Justin John, a member of the Kottayam Knanaya Archdiocese, filed a petition in the Kerala High Court with a plea to initiate contempt of court proceedings against Archbishop Mathew Moolakkatt and Father Sijo Stephan, the parish priest of St. Anne’s parish at Kottody in Kerala’s Kasargod district.
John in his petition accused the the archbishop and the priest of not issuing him the mandatory permission for solemnizing his marriage in his parish church, violating an earlier High Court order.
The contempt case, filed on August 25, is likely to come up for hearing on September 15.
John scheduled his marriage with Vijimol Shaji, a member of Tellicherry Archdiocese in Kerala for May 18 after duly informing his parish priest, who agreed to personally hand over the permission for the marriage to the parish priest of his bride where the marriage was to be solemnized.
However, the parish priest at the last movement refused to issue the permission, forcing John and his wife to hold a symbolic marriage of garlanding each other before some 1,000 invited guests in front of the closed church of his bride.
The guests pledged their solidarity with the couple and blessed them and encouraged them to file a case against the priest and the archbishop, who had reportedly forced the priest to deny marriage permission.
The Kottayam archdiocese follows the centuries-old endogamy or purity blood theory and does not allow its members to marry from outside the archdiocese.
The archdiocese dismisses the membership of those marrying outside the archdiocese, although it is one of 32 dioceses in the Syro-Malabar Church.
After a three-decade protracted fight, a civil court in Kerala in April 2021 declared the practice illegal.
The court also ordered the archdiocese not to discriminate against its members who married outside it.
Besides this, the court directed the archdiocese to issue mandatory church certificates to solemnize marriages of those willing to get married from other Catholic dioceses.
The archdiocese challenged the order in the Kerala High court in March 2022 and sought for a stay on it during the pendency of the case.
The High Court refused to grant the stay, instead ordered the archdiocese to comply with lower court order and agreed to hear the appeal after the archdiocese listed several loopholes in the order.
“It was wrong on the part of the parish priest to deny me permission for marriage,” John told Matters India on August 29.
Asked why the archbishop was impleaded in the case, he said, “The matter was duly informed to the archbishop much in advance citing the court order, but he showed no respect to the court order.”
John insists that he will seek all the legal recourses available to get his marriage solemnized in the Church as he wants end the unchristian practice.
Hats off to Justin John for taking the matter head on. The Catholic Church Hierarchy (whether Syro-Malabar or other sects) thinks it is a law unto itself.
Sadly, in the absence of any other form of redress in the Catholic Church, the only resort for justice is the Civil Court. The Catholic Church cannot turn a blind eye to people’s legitimate aspirations