By Jose Kavi
New Delhi, Dec 22, 2023: The laity and priests of the archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly have agreed to respect a papal directive and celebrate Mass on Christmas in the format they have opposed for decades.
“All churches in the archdiocese will celebrate one Mass on Christmas in the synod mode,” Riju Kanjookaren, spokesperson of the laity front, told Matters India on December 22.
The lay leader said they have not decided which Mass would be in the synod format — the midnight one or Christmas day.
Kanjookaren, however, clarified that the parishes in the archdiocese will continue to celebrate Mass in the traditional format after Christmas.
The Pope on December 7 asked the people of the archdiocese to celebrate Mass in the synod mode or face action for non-compliance. In a video message to the archdiocese, the Pope denounced agitation over the liturgy and appealed for unity, the Vatican News reported.
The pontiff told the Ernakulam dissidents to conform to the synod’s decision or risk being declared outside of communion with the Church.
“I ask you to be careful,” the Pope says. “Be careful that the devil does not lead you to transform yourselves into a sect.”
The Pope pleaded with them not to force “the competent ecclesiastic authority” to recognize they have left the Church because they are “no longer in communion” with their pastors and with the Pope. If that should happen, he warned, “with great sorrow, sanctions would be incurred.”
“I do not want to reach that stage,” the Pope added.
Majority of the priests and lay people in the archdiocese have opposed the synod Mass and insisted on the traditional way of celebration where the priest faces the congregation throughout.
The liturgy dispute in the larger of India’s two Catholic Oriental rites began in the 1970s as a spiritual reformation prompted by the Second Vatican spread across the Catholic Church.
One group in the Kerala-based Syro-Malabar Church, led by Ernakulam archdiocese, wanted the liturgy to reflect the council insight, but another group, led by the archdiocese of Changanacherry, insisted on restoring the ancient practices in the Church that traces its origin to Saint Thomas the Apostle.
After almost three decades in 1999, the Church’s synod approved a format where officiating priests face the altar during Eucharistic prayer and people in the beginning and at concluding parts.
When several dioceses refused to accept the synod direction, the Church dispensations allowed priests to celebrate Mass facing the congregation.
The Church is the second largest of the Eastern rites in union with Rome, numbering some 4.25 million faithful. The archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly is the primatial see of the Church and home of its Major Archbishop.
The latest dispute arose after August 2021 when the synod withdrew the dispensations and asked all 35 dioceses in the Church to follow the synod Mass with effect from the Advent of that year.
The dissidents’ decision to celebrate Synod Mass on Christmas is part of a Memorandum of Understanding agreed between them and Jesuit Archbishop Cyril Vasil of Slovakia, pontifical delegate, and Bishop Bosco Puthur, apostolic administrator of the archdiocese.
The archbishop made a second visit to Kerala on December 13 as the papal delegate to resolve the dispute and left after a few days reportedly preparing the memorandum of understanding.
His first visit, August 4-21, had not produced any result.
The memorandum prepared during the visit reportedly allows Syond Mass one Sunday in a month in St Mary’s Cathedral Church, archdiocesan minor seminary and pilgrimage centers.
However, the papal delegate did not sign the understanding, allegedly after he received a call from the Vatican. Archbishop Vasil reportedly left India promising to present the case to the Pope.
It is good that the reformists have accepted a token change for Christmas in a spirit of goodwill. However, reference to the “traditional ” Mass is incorrect. What the reformists are insisting on is the post Vatican II liturgy that is more in consonance with the Last Supper.