Instructions from the Syro-Malabar Church head, Major Archbishop Raphael Thattil, and from the archdiocesan administrator Bosco Puthur, were supposed to be read at Masses last week.

The synod required that Mass be celebrated facing the people during the Liturgy of the Word and facing the altar during the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

Priests were warned in writing they would be excommunicated if they were to conduct any Mass other than in the synodal form after 3 July. Nor would parishioners attending such a Mass fulfil the Sunday obligation.

Defying the warning, clergy and parishioners from 321 churches in the archdiocese refused to do so.

They say they intend to stick to the full people-facing Mass even after the deadline.

Protests and verbal assaults

Protesters have set the archbishop's instructions on fire, thrown them into water and binned them.

At the Udayamperoor synodal church, some of the laity started an argument over the Archbishop's instructions during Mass..

Churchgoers reportedly pushed and shoved at each other over the issue.

Police had to intervene (see image) to maintain law and order.

Why defy the instructions

Clergy refused to read the instructions because they said facing the people throughout the celebration of the Mass represented their local tradition. It is also more in keeping with the liturgical teachings of the Second Vatican Council, they argued.

Over 450 priests and every parish committee in the archdiocese have stated multiple times before the Synod and the Vatican that they will offer mass only where the priest faces the congregation throughout the ritual. So says a "Lay People to the Fore" protest group spokesman.

"But the Church leadership has never considered the stand of the diocese or intervened to find a solution and instead has always tried to impose its agenda."

Abominable clericalism

One priest wrote to all the bishops in India.

"Archbishop Andrews Thazhath misused his power as the Apostolic Administrator and has obviously misguided and misinformed Pope Francis on the liturgical issues of the Archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly.

"His unethical acts and reports have snowballed for the worse, which significantly is a minor issue of a rubric to a serious issue of ecclesial communion.

"This is, to say the least, utterly un-Christian and against the basic Gospel principles."

It was "abominable" he says.

Another priest says Thazhath was once the strongest proponent of the Mass versus populum (facing the people), "while now he has shamelessly backtracked by contending that the narrative and the theology is erroneous".

"One cannot miss the cruel, irresponsible and wild allegations ... in the latest circular ... which has pronouncedly condemned the people of the Archdiocese to be eternal victims of hierarchal apathy and highhandedness."

Source

• Times of India
• Crux Now

The Eastern-rite Church in the southern Indian Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese is refusing to say the synod-approved Mass. The refusal is in open defiance of a pontifical delegate's directives.

The liturgy row

The archdiocese's priests and the laity want celebrants to face the congregation throughout the Mass. This has been their tradition since 1970.

They refuse to accept a liturgy which the Church's Synod of Bishops approved. In this, the priests must face the altar during the Eucharistic prayer.

After hearing Vasil's directive, only six of the 328 parishes in the archdiocese celebrated Mass in the synod-approved uniform mode.

In seven parishes, people stopped the priests from complying with the delegate's order.

An overwhelming majority of priests and parishes stuck to their traditional Mass, in which celebrants faced the congregation.

The delegate

Archbishop Cyril Vasil - the delegate appointed to settle the decades-old liturgy row amicably - has now returned to Rome.

Dissidents say he didn't follow his original mandate and his disciplinary actions have reportedly worsened the situation.

He threatened priests with excommunication if they failed to comply with his ultimatum - where he ordered all the archdiocese's priests to offer the Synod-approved Mass from August 20.

He also sought to close parish churches if they faced protests against his order.

On August 22, Archbishop Andrews Thazhath - the archdiocese's apostolic administrator - removed four junior priests in the archdiocesan seminary for not offering the Synod-approved Mass.

What now?

"I think now we are on a path of never going back. The feeling is to become an independent Catholic Church ... independent of an oppressive system," a senior priest says.

"Now it is clear that the people and the priests in the archdiocese do not want the uniform mode of Mass which the Syro-Malabar Synod wants to force upon us" says Riju Kanjookaran.

He's a spokesperson for the Archdiocesan Movement for Transparency, a forum of priests, religious and laity spearheading the protest.

Vasil arbitrarily issued the ultimatum to the priests without even discussing the basic issues that stop them from adopting the uniform mode of Mass, Kanjookaran says.

The dissident group has called for the priests who celebrated the uniform mode for Mass in place of the traditional Mass to vacate their churches immediately.

They say Thazhath is the "main villain" who aggravated the crisis in the archdiocese since his appointment as apostolic administrator on July 30, 2022. They had sought his removal in the past and even boycotted him.

Meanwhile, back in Rome

Vasil "will apprise the pope and the prefect of the oriental congregations of his assessments about the difficulties in implementing the Syro-Malabar Synod-approved uniform mode of Mass in the archdiocese," an official statement from the Syro-Malabar Church says.

He will continue "as pontifical delegate" and will come again as part of his mission.

"Appropriate mechanisms have been put in place in the archdiocese to carry out further action," the statement added.

Source

• UCA News
• UCA News

They burnt it in a public protest.

Archbishop Andrews Thazhath's circular insisted on a controversial form of Mass. That form has been the centre of a dispute for 50 years.

St Mary's Basilica, which is the seat of the Major Archbishop of the Eastern-rite Syro-Malabar Church, closed last December.

The closure followed physical violence inside it over the liturgy dispute.

The dispute

Most of the archdiocese's priests and laity have rejected an order of the Mass approved by the Church's synod.

The order demanded priests turn to the altar during the Eucharistic prayer.

Modernist priests and laity want the celebrants to face the people throughout the Mass. Traditionalists want the opposite.

The dispute led the synod to have a special gathering this month. It agreed to request the Vatican send a delegate to decide on the issue.

The circular

Despite this, Thazhath (who is also the Indian Catholic Bishops Conference president) issued the circular, insisting the archdiocese follow the synod-approved Mass.

"What is the need for the administrator to issue such a circular?" asked Riju Kanjookaran. He's the Archdiocesan Movement for Transparency spokesperson, which led the protest in front of the closed basilica.

The administrator's June 22 circular ordered Cathedral Vicar Father Antony Narikulam to celebrate the synod-approved Mass in the Cathedral before July 2. It also threatened to transfer him without any prior notice if he fails.

Additionally, the circular warned of action against the parish council for opposing the synod's decision about matters like liturgy, which are beyond the council's jurisdiction.

Special synod

The administrator said these actions have been agreed upon during the Syro-Malabar Church's special June 12-16 synod.

The special synod followed Vatican directions to find a lasting solution to the archdiocese's liturgy dispute. However, the 56 bishops at the synod couldn't reach a consensus. They recommended the Vatican send a papal delegate to settle it.

"When the synod has decided to leave the matter for final adjudication to the Vatican, this circular is only aimed at creating trouble for the faithful and the priests in the archdiocese who are ready to work with the papal delegate for a final settlement," Kanjookaran says.

"We have complained against the administrator to the synod and would soon inform the Vatican about his coercive actions aimed at creating more trouble ahead of the visit of papal delegate."

Church officials say the Vatican still has to let the synod know about the delegate and his arrival date.

"At the movement, we only know that the synod has requested the Vatican to send a delegate. Nothing else is clear," one of the synod's bishops says.

Kanjookarn says the administrator continues his "terror acts" against the diocese's approximate 500,000 Catholics, including 400 priests.

"It is better for everyone to maintain peace as the ball is now in the court of the Vatican," one priest says.

Source

• UCA News

The protest revolves around how apostolic administrator Archbishop Andrews Thazhath, unilaterally revoked the dispensation allowing priests to celebrate Mass facing the people.

The protesters want to continue with the traditional Mass in which the priest faces the congregation throughout, despite a rule that took effect in 2021.

Under that rule, devised as a compromise, the Syro-Malabar synod ruled that the priest "will face the congregation until the Eucharistic prayer, and then again from Communion to the end of the Mass. From Eucharistic prayers until Communion, the priest will face the altar."

Lay leaders in the Kochi-based Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese launched the vigil on 16 October. Teams of laypeople from different parishes are keeping a 24-hour vigil.

"We no longer want the apostolic administrator to get inside our archbishop's house," says Riju Kanjookaran, spokesman for the Archdiocesan Movement for Transparency.

Pope Francis appointed Thazhath as the administrator of the Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese in July. He was given the mandate to settle the liturgical dispute caused by stiff opposition to the synod's decision to have uniformity in the celebration of Mass.

Resistance to Thazhath changed on 30 September when he ordered all priests to celebrate the synod-approved Mass immediately and revoked their dispensation.

Most priests publicly defied the order. They continued to celebrate Mass facing the people. They also refused to read out Thazhath's message, announcing the dispensation had been revoked and his order to the priests.

The liturgical dispute in the Syro-Malabar Church dates back nearly five decades, when the church initiated a revision of its liturgy.

The simmering controversy was revived in August 2021 when the synod implemented its 1999 decision to introduce uniformity in Mass across all the dioceses.

All but one of the Syro-Malabar Church's 35 dioceses began following the synod-approved Mass last November.

Thazhath, in a video message, defended his decision, saying he was merely following instructions from the Vatican.

Source

• UCA News
• Crux Now
• CathNews New Zealand

Members of the Archdiocesan Movement for Transparency (AMT) set alight to the circular letter from Archbishop Andrews Thazhath outside Bishop's House in Ernakulum, Kerela.

Andrews Thazhath, the Apostolic Administrator of the Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese, issued a circular on September 30. It reminded priests and laity of the Pope's communication to adhere to the unified mode of worship at all parishes under the Syro-Malabar Church.

The uniform mode was introduced in 1999 as a compromise between those who favoured the Holy Qurbana celebrated 'ad orientem' and those who preferred it celebrated 'versus populum'.

Under the "50:50 formula," priests face the congregation during the Liturgy of the Word but turn east for the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

Pope Francis has endorsed the formula, which has been adopted in other Syro-Malabar dioceses. But most clergy in the Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese want to continue facing the people throughout the Eucharistic liturgy, a practice they have followed for the past 50 years.

The prelate met with priests in a presbytery where he insisted that they should offer Mass as directed by the Church's Synod instead of the traditional style.

"We disagreed with the demand of the archbishop and tried to convince him of the reality in the archdiocese that nobody wants the synod Mass, but he was not ready to listen to us at all," said a priest on condition of anonymity.

Archbishop Thazhath then attended a meeting of the newly constituted curia after the presbytery meeting, from where he was escorted by police to a waiting taxi.

A group of laypeople inside the Archbishop's House shouted slogans demanding Archbishop Thazhath's resignation as he was escorted to the vehicle.

The AMT, a combine of priests and lay people, said that representatives of parish councils would meet on Sunday to discuss the developments. "It appears that our views have not been conveyed properly to the Vatican," said AMT spokesperson Riju Kanjookkaran on Saturday.

The AMT said representatives of various parishes would dump the circular in a public garbage bin on Sunday after a meeting at the Renewal Centre at Kaloor. It will be followed by burning the circular in all churches on 9 October.

Mr Kanjookaran said lay people and a majority of priests of the archdiocese were opposed to the implementation of the uniform Mass celebration. He claimed that the letter in which the Vatican had stood for a uniform Mass system was part of a personal letter received by Archbishop Thazhath. It was not a public document, as claimed by the archdiocesan administrator.

Sources

The Hindu

The Pillar

Matters India