Archbishop Andrews Thazhath of Trichur, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India, led the four-member delegation along with federal minister Suresh Gopi, a parliamentarian elected from southern Kerala state and a member of Modi's Bhartiya Janata Party.

The 45-minute meeting at the prime minister's office "was cordial, and the prime minister gave us a good hearing," Thazhath told the media at the bishops' conference office in New Delhi.

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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

Archbishop Andrews Thazhath, the administrator, came to St Mary's Basilica Cathedral Church escorted by police to offer Mass in the synod-approved format that is being opposed by the majority of Catholics and clergy in the archdiocese.

Those opposing the administrator had already filled the basilica compound and locked the church gate preventing the prelate from entering the church.

Sensing trouble, the police officials accompanying the archbishop did not allow him to get out of the car. After waiting for almost 10 minutes in front of the basilica, the prelate returned to the nearby Archbishop's House along with the police and his supporters.

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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