No priest was removed from Ernakulam seminary: Dissidents

By Matters India Reporter

Kochi, Aug 24, 2023: A movement that leads the dissidents in the archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly has denied reports that four priests have been ordered out of a seminary for refusing to adopt the uniform mode of the liturgy.

“Those priests are still in the seminary and they have no plan to move out,” Riju Kanjookaren, spokesperson of the Almaya Munnetam (laity movement) told Matters India on August 24.

He was reacting to reports in Indian and international media that Fathers Alex Kareemadam, Varghese Ambalathingal, Vakkachan Kumpalil and Joseph Madavanakadu were asked to move out of the archdiocese’s minor seminary overnight.

The instruction from Archbishop Andrews Thazhath of Trichur, the apostolic administrator of the archdiocese, was reportedly “the first act of discipline against local clergy.”

The four priests were reportedly asked if they would follow the Mass format as approved by Pope Francis and the Syro-Malabar Church Synod. “They said no. That’s why they have been directed to vacate the premises of the minor seminary,” the reports quoted an archdiocesan official as saying.

Kanjookaren points out that the archdiocese’s nearly 450 priests had defied Pontifical Delegate Archbishop Cyril Vasil’s August 17 order to end their opposition to the liturgical norms on the following Sunday. He also threatened to excommunicate priests who defied his order.

Only six of the archdiocese’s 328 parishes obeyed the delegate and celebrated the synod Masses.

After Archbishop Thazhath ordered the four priests to move out of the seminary “without giving them even one night’s respite,” a group of Catholics gathered in the seminary and asked the priests to stay put.

The priests “were ready to leave the seminary immediately, but were stopped by Catholics led by the Almaya Munnetam,” the spokesperson said.

Archbishop Thazhath had signed the transfer order reportedly instructed by Archbishop Vasil.