One of the two prelates, who brokered peace in troubled Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese in Kerala, says he is “extremely happy” with the outcome of their efforts.
“It was indeed divine intervention that the priests and bishops could agree to resolve their problems in true Christian spirit just before the Holy Week,” Cardinal Baselios Mar Cleemis Cardinal Cleemis, heads the Syro-Malankara Church, told Matters India on March 26.
Cardinal Cleemis and Archbishop Maria Calist Soosa Pakiam of Trivandrum met five times with the priests and bishops of Ernakulam-Angamaly to resolve the land sale dispute that alleged caused huge financial loss to the Syro-Malabar archdiocese.
Archbishop Pakiam is the president of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council and a top leader of the Latin Church in the southern Indian state.
Cardinal Cleemis said the two volunteered to intervene in the matter out of concern for a “Sister Church” embroiled in a controversy causing serious damage to the mission of the entire Church in India.
Several priests of Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese had demanded the resignation of Cardinal George Alencherry, their bishop and head of the Syro-Malabar Church. They accused the cardinal of lack of transparency in financial matters and misleading the priests’ council. Some lay people had approached even the Supreme Court to press for police case against.
Cardinal Cleemis, the immediate past president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, said he and Archbishop Pakiam met separately with the protesting priests and Cardinal Alencherry and his two junior prelates.
After a day-long negotiation on March 23, the two groups agreed to settle the matter amicably. Cardinal Alencherry met the priests to express his regrets over the controversy.
Cardinal Alencherry’s address to the priests helped break the ice as he had been avoiding such a meeting since the controversy arose. “Lack of communication between the cardinal and the priests was a major problem,” Cardinal Cleemis explained.
