Dissident Catholic leaders in an Indian archdiocese have ex-pressed reluctance to follow the official liturgy of their Syro-Malabar Church despite a direction from Pope Francis to do so, forcing Church officials to say those who challenge the pope have no place in the Catholic Church.
“We want our newly appointed apostolic administrator to apprise Pope Francis about the truth” that people want celebrants to face them during the Mass, said retired Justice Kurian Joseph, a member of the Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese and a former judge of India’s Supreme Court (SC) said on Dec.10.
Joseph and several other leaders made similar demands while addressing a gathering of Catholics and some 500 priests, religious and nuns as they concluded the centenary of the establishment of the Syro-Malabar Hierarchy in the Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese (1923-2023). Organizers said some 50,000 people gathered for the celebrations.
Their gathering came three days after the Church officials announced the resignation of the Church’s major archbishop Cardinal George Alencherry and the administrator Archbishop Andrew Thazhath.
The papal message also warned not to force authorities to declare them as people “no longer in communion” with the Church because they refused to follow the Church-approved liturgy.

Sister Seli Thomas, a member of the Sisters of Mary Immaculate from India, was among three nuns who received the inaugural Sisters Anti-Trafficking Awards (SATA) on October 31.
Also honored were Sr.Patricia Ebegbulem from Nigeria and Sr.Francoise Jiranonda from Thailand. The three have been rescuing women from networks that profit from sexual and labor trafficking. Thomas won the Common Good Award for courage and creativity in addressing exploitation.
Co-hosted by Arise, the International Union of Superiors General and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the awards ceremony in London drew 200 people. Thomas, a lawyer, is based in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata. Her congregation is also known as the Krishnagar Sisters, as it was founded in a city with the same name in West Bengal.
Thomas spoke with GSR about campaigns against human trafficking and attempts to make village women self-reliant.
“Sr.Lisette Thuruthimattam, the then-superior general of our congregation, after attending the UISG plenary assembly in 2009, inspired me to venture into the anti-trafficking mission in West Bengal. Bishop Louis Larravoire Morrow [of Krishnagar] founded our congregation – the Sisters of Mary Immaculate – for evangelization and catechesis with a specific thrust toward women, girls and children.

Christians should serve others without fear or expectations in a multireligious society, says Theo-dosius Mar Thoma Metropolitan, the supreme head of the Kerala-based Mar Thoma Church.
“Whatever place you are, try to do something for the betterment of people around you,” the prelate said while addressing the vale-dictory function of Jaipur’s Mar Thoma parish’s golden jubilee.
The metropolitan, who was the chief guest, urged the parish community to develop a plan to support all the people around.
He also asked the parish community what it has done for the wider community for all the blessings it has received in the last 50 years.
‘Try to do big things for God. One should understand what God is expecting from us and submit ourselves to God’s plan. Spread-ing the message of love makes a parish relevant,” he added.
While interacting with the church executive committee the previous day, the metropolitan said, “In the present multi religious and pluralistic context in India, Christians should spread the message of love, and extend dedicated service to the wider community, without any fear and without expecting anything in return.”
Mumtaz Masih, the chairman of the Rajasthan government’s Voluntary Sector Development Centre, who was the guest of honour at the function, reminded the gathering that the foundation of Christianity is love. “Love means service to others, whether it is in the area of education or health or any other sector. We should reach out to the people in need,” he added.

An Indian Catholic priest who quit his pastoral ministry “to clean up” the Eastern-rite Syro-Malabar Church remains defiant despite his diocese imposing a set of new restrictions on him, four months after he was suspended from priestly ministry.
Father Thomas (Ajimon) Puthiyaparambil has a new set of restrictions imposed on him by Bishop Remigiose Inchanananiyil of Thamarassery diocese in southern Kerala state through a Nov. 10 letter.
The priest though has vowed to continue with what he termed as his “prophetic mission” to cleanse the Church, especially the Syro-Malabar Church based in Kerala, saying it had deviated from the teachings of Jesus Christ.
“No one has the authority to prohibit a human being from his basic human rights. It’s against the will of God,” Puthiyaparambil said.
Speaking on Nov. 27, he asserted that there was no reason for dismay and depression “as Jesus is always strengthening and consoling me.”
“I accept this humiliation without much difficulty,” the priest added.
Puthiyaparambil has been restrained from conducting Mass, receiving Holy Communion in public, or administering confe-ssion to people unless in case of the death of a person. Other restrictions include curbs on inter-actions with the public, including through media and social media platforms.
The priest is also ordered to stay in the home meant for the retired priests and asked not to stay anywhere else. He is only allowed to interact with his parental home, religious and Cannon law experts.
The prelate suspended the priest on July 18 after he refused to take up a new assignment when he was transferred as the vicar of a parish on April 29. He had made a public announcement to quit pastoral ministry on May 12.
Thamarassery diocese on Oct. 6 announced the formation of an ecclesiastical tribunal to initiate judicial proceedings against him.
The new set of restrictions imposed on Puthiyaparambil is part of these proceedings, according to a diocesan official.
“We expect the priest to comply with them until the tribunal completes its proceedings and declares a verdict,” he added.
The priest, however, refused to heed the restrictions, saying that “many of them are directly in violation of the Indian constitutional provisions of fundamental rights.”
“I still do not want to enter into any legal fight over such restrictions as I am not against anyone including the bishop,” Puthiyaparambil said but added that the restrictions on him are “inhuman and illegal.”

In India, women are also discriminated in terms of organ donation, this according to a report published by The Times of India, based on data collected on transplants between 1995 and 2021.
In particular, of the 36,640 interventions carried out in the country, about 29,000 involved men and only 6,945 women. Overall, four men get organ transplants for every woman.
For the authors of the investigation, more men contribute as dead donors, in a continent where the practice has struggled to be accepted, fuelling the black market and organ trafficking. Conversely, most living organ donors are women.
A study published in 2021 in the Experimental and Clinical Transplantation Journal analysed organ transplants in 2019, showing that women represent 80% of living organ donors, mainly wives or mothers, while 80% of recipients are men.
One reason for women to be living organ donors is likely their greater vulnerability to “pressure” towards “sacrificing” them-selves and donating a body part to save their husband, children or siblings.
“Gender disparity in organ donation is a reality not just in India, but the world over, studies and experts indicate,” said Dr Pascoal Carvalho, an Indian doctor and member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, speaking to AsiaNews.
“Cultural and societal norms often view women as caregivers and nurturers, a fact attributable to our society’s mindset and patriarchal society,” he explained.
“We need to find out the reasons for the existing gender imbalance and check it for matters of fairness and undue pressure or coercion on the women for organ donation.”
In the past, the Indian Church has worked hard to promote organ donation, in a country – and more generally a continent – where reluctance to support the practice was and is still strong in many groups.
In 2016, dozens of Indian nuns from different congregations pledged to donate corneas upon their death, as part of a programme promoted by the Claretian Fathers of the Indian Institute of Spirituality in Bengaluru (Bangalore).

A group of Dalit Christians in the Purathakudi-Magizhambadi panchayat, Trichy district (Tamil Nadu), have complained about caste discrimination by non-Dalit co-religionists at the St.Francis Xavier parish church, this despite a 2015 high court order allowing them to participate in church activities, inclu-ding the annual festival.
The local parish comes under the Diocese of Kumbakonam and serves about 3,000 households, half of them Dalits and half non-Dalits. Dalit Christians complain that they have been excluded from the church’s annual festival.
“During the celebration, no flag, torch-light, or car processions are carried out in our streets. The dominant Christians do not allow us to touch cars or adorn them with garlands,” some local Dalits said.
“We are completely ignored in all religious and cultural activities of our church. Even after the peace committee met 14 times, there was no consensus to let Dalits participate in the processions,” they explained.
The local festival falls on 3 December. After the court’s ruling in 2016, it was celebrated by Dalit and non-Dalits only in 2017. The Madurai bench of the High Court this year again ordered the authorities, the bishop of Kumbakonam and the parish priest to take the most appropriate steps to involve Dalits in the annual festival.
The top clergy “has taken a stand in favour of the dominant Christians,” Dalits lament, a charge non-Dalit Christians reject, saying that logistical factors explain why the procession avoided some areas.
Father R Arockiadoss, vicar forane in the Lalgudi area, said the diocese is ready to implement the high court’s decision. “Our bishop did his best to bring both groups together to organise the car procession.”
“Although the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court ordered to take the car procession in Dalit streets, this has not been done yet,” said Fr Raj, former national secretary of the Office for Schedule Castes & Backward Classes (SC/BC) of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI).

Catholic nuns working agai-nst human trafficking in various parts of India have pledged to li-ve the values of the Indian Consti-tution and continue their mission with renewed vigor.
Around 170 nuns from 80 women religious congregations gathered November 24-26 at Proggaloy, Barasat, North 24 Parganas, West Bengal, to share their adventurous and successful moments as well as the challenges they faced while combating hu-man trafficking.
The meeting was the 13th annual general body meeting of Amrat Talitha Kum India which is affiliated to Talitha Kum Inter-national.
Bishop Shyamal Boss of Baruipur, who led the inaugural Mass, reiterated the significance of working against human tra-fficking and appreciated the women Religious for their tireless and courageous efforts to check the social menace. He also hailed the nuns’ contribution in enhan-cing the Church’s effective pre-sence in the country and the world at large.
PM Nair, a renowned retired police officer who was the re-source person of the day, shared his personal interventions in rescuing children and his attitude of Christ-like compassion to the victims and survivors of Human Trafficking. He said he was “so happy to interact with so many sisters in the divine and universal Mission to work on preventing human slavery.”

Friends and associates of Sister Seli Thomas have congratulated her for winn-ing the inaugural Sisters Anti-Trafficking Awards (SATA).
“On behalf of the natio-nal Conference of Religious India we congratulate Sister Seli Thomas,” says Apostolic Carmel Sister M Nirmalini, head of India’s more than 130,000 Catholic religious.
Congregation of Jesus Sister Cyntha Anna Mathew, who now works in the United Nations, wrote on her Facebook page: “Congratulations to my friend Seli whose work was recognized and awarded. May you continue to bring hope and joy into the lives of many more women and children.”
Sisters Thomas, a member of Sisters of Mary Immaculate in Krishnagar, West Bengal, received the award at a function in Lo-ndon on October 31 along with Sisters Patricia Ebeg-bulem from Nigeria and Francoise Jiranonda from Thailand. The three have been rescuing women from networks that profit from sexual and labor trafficking.
Among those paying tribute to the them were former British prime minister Theresa May, and British champion athlete Sir Mo Farah.
The host of the award program said the three “have demonstrated courage, creativity, collabora-tion, and achievement in the protection of their communities from human trafficking.”

Three global rights groups have urged the Indian govern-ment to stop targeting rights acti-vists by abusing counterterrori-sm and financial laws and called on a major terror financing and money laundering watchdog to intervene.
The Indian government is “weaponizing” the laws to detain and punish rights activists, Hu-man Rights Watch (HRW), Am-nesty International, and the Cha-rity & Security Network said in a joint statement on Nov. 3.
The counterterrorism law has been used to level “unfounded charges” against activists, said Aakar Patel from Amnesty Inter-national India.
“Authorities are using bogus foreign funding and terrorism charges to target, intimidate, harass, and silence critics, in clear violation of Financial Action Task Force [FATF] standards,” Patel added.
The FATF, which India joined in 2010, is a 40-member country body mandated to tackle money laundering, terror finan-cing, and other threats to the inte-grity of the global financial sys-tem.
The rights groups’ statement came just days before the FATF’s fourth periodic review of India’s record on tackling illicit funding on Nov. 6.

Christians and Muslims joined Hindus for an interreligious celebration of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, in the northern Indian city of Varanasi, Hinduism’s most sacred place.
“The lamp does not burn, but the wick does. Similarly, the external factors do not spread love, true love is unseen, and is ready to die for the other,” said Surendra Charan, a renowned Christian lawyer and co-founder of Kashi Qaumi Ekta Manch (United Forum of Communal Harmony in Kashi).
Kashi is another name of Varanasi and Diwali falls on November 12 this year.
The November 10 program at Hukulganj, a Varanasi slum where Muslims and Hindus live together was titled Chirag-e-Muhabbat (Lamp of Love) and it consisted of songs, drama and mushaira (poetry recitation) that conveyed the message of love, harmony and peaceful co-existence.
Taufiq Ansari, a peace activist working with Vishwa Jyoti Communications of the Indian Missionary Society, a Catholic congregation, said the best part of the program he liked was the lighting of earthen lamps in front of all the houses in the area.