By Jose Kavi

New Delhi, Aug 19, 2023: Catholics in India are urging the papal delegate to not weaponize Eucharist to enforce obedience among the dissident priests of the Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese in Kerala.

As Jesuit Archbishop Cyril Vasil’s threat of excommunication looms large on those dissident priests, Catholics in other parts of the country want the delegate to practice synodality promoted by Pope Francis to resolve the dispute over the mode of offering Mass.

The delegate, who landed in the southern Indian state of Kerala on August 4 to help resolve the decades-old dispute, ordered the dissenting clergy to offer Mass approved by the Syro-Malabar Synod in all parishes of the archdiocese or face excommunication. The deadline to implement the order is on Sunday, August 20.

Archbishop Vasil “seems to weaponize the Eucharist with his latest warning on the Syro-Malabar liturgy under the guise of obedience,” laments Father George Pattery, former president of the Jesuit Conference of South Asia.

Father Pattery, who is currently in Kolkata, urges the papal delegate to employ Jesuit expertise on discernment to help the Syro-Malabar Church discover true synodality and, if needed, revise its earlier decisions on liturgy, as “purity and pollution theories are questioned in the New Testament.”

“For Jesus, the eucharist should lead to washing one another’s feet, and not in ritual purity/pollution theories – something that Jesus strongly interrogated,” said the Jesuit, a native of Kerala.

Astrid Lobo Gajiwala, a laywoman theologian in Mumbai, expressing shock at the papal delegate’s threat, asks, “What kind of Church is this??

“Child abusers and rapists are not excommunicated but those who are fighting a rubric that requires them to have their backs to the congregation during the Eucharistic celebration, are being threatened with excommunication. Such a threat is not only unjust but trivializes the very meaning of being a Christian,” Lobo asserts.

She wonders if the Catholic Church is a club where the membership is dependent on such an inconsequential rule? “How will this rule affect our salvation?” she asks.

She finds it ironic that “such strong-arm measures are being used at a time when the universal Church has already spent two years discussing ways of building a synodal Church, one in which the voices of all are heard.”

“Is the Vatican listening to the voices of priests and people in the Syro-Malabar Church who for decades have been following the practice advocated in the Roman Missal, namely celebrating the Mass facing the people?” she asks.

“Interestingly, priests of the Latin Church continue to face the people during the Mass. So, we now have a situation where some members of the Catholic Church can be excommunicated for following a rubric that other members of the same Church follow as the norm. It is so ridiculous, it is embarrassing,” she adds.

Jesuit Father Stanislaus Alla, who teaches moral theology in Delhi’s Vidyajyoti College of Theology, says “synodality focuses on the equality of all Christians based on Baptismal grace, on servant leadership, humility, listening, learning, learning even from those one disagrees with.”

He says when the Pope “sends a delegate, one supposes that he is advised to speak to various groups, even with those who oppose.”

However, what is happening in Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese “explicitly reveals, the use of ‘authority’ in the Church has become central.”

He says making the final decision on the mode of celebrating Mass should have been left to the Pope.

Father Alla regrets that things in the Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese are getting worse, and “the path seems to take us nowhere.”

“When the announcement of a Visitor was made public on the Feast of St Ignatius, I expected that Archbishop Vasil will come to listen, reverently and respectfully, to various constituents, make a report, a truly grounded one in the spirit of synodality, and submit it to the Holy Father. Hardly see any of them take place. It is disappointing to see these developments, particularly in the background of Synodal sessions,” Father Alla adds.

Father Enas Ottathengumkal, former vicar general of Palai, another Syro-Malabar diocese in Kerala, says the liturgy dispute could be resolved if those in authority could shed their arrogance and stubbornness.

“It would be really useful if they could show the wisdom to loosen their tight fist,” says the former principal of Palai’s St Thomas College, in a Facebook post. The 87-year-old priest says the public and crowd are led more by emotions than wisdom and those in authority should know this and act accordingly.

Father Ottathengumkal, who has been a priest since 1964, says the dispute over the liturgy began when the Syro-Malabar Church introduced changes after Vatican II. While one group led by the Ernakulam archdiocese wanted the changes according to the council teachings, another group led by the Changanacherry archdiocese insisted on returning to the Church’s roots and removing all traces of Latinization.

The dispute deepened when the Church became independent with sui juris (self-governing) powers. “Initially, the Ernakulam faction had the majority in the synod, but eventually the other group got the upper hand. The Ernakulam group was isolated and others mounted an attack on it,” the priest explained.

He regrets that the synod is more interested in fighting to preserve the traditions and rituals than safeguarding the essence of the faith.

Meanwhile, the Almaya Munnetam, the laity front that leads the protests in Ernakulam, defied the delegate’s threat and announced that Mass will be offered only in the traditional mode in all 326 churches in the archdiocese on August 20.

“If any priest tries to hold the Synod Mass in any other church, the faithful will create a blockade,” warns the front’s August 19 statement.