• PONMALA

After standing by and watching a four-year long ferocious combat between mongoose and snake, a man brought it to an end by immobilising both the animals with a stick. I can find no better way to allegorically summarise the action taken by the Vatican to end the factional fight going on in the Syro-Malabar Church regarding a major land deal scam involving Major Archbishop Emeritus George Cardinal Alencherry and the 50-50 formula proposed by its synod for celebrating the Holy Mass. George Cardinal Alencherry was eased out of his lifelong post of Major Archbishop and Abp Andrews Thazhath was divested of the additional charge he held as Apostolic Administrator of Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese. To compensate them for their loss, the Vatican fulfilled their cherished dream of imposing the Syro-Malabar Synod’s uniform Mass celebration on Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese by releasing a video message of the Pope to that effect. In the video, the Pope exhorted the faithful of Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese to submit to the decision of the Synod regarding the Mass.
The Pope met a longstanding demand of the priests and faithful of Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese by sending Abp Cyril Vasil as his delegate, but only after exhorting them through a video message to submit to the decision of the Syro-Malabar Synod regarding the Mass. Abp Cyril Vasil made his intentions clear immediately on landing in Kochi – he had come to see that the 50-50 formula devised by the Synod for celebrating the Mass is implemented. But the priests and faithful of the archdiocese stuck to their guns and made it known to the papal delegate that they would celebrate the Mass the way it was celebrated since 1962. The papal delegate returned empty handed.
The Papal delegate came a second time just before Christmas. This time around he adopted a consultative approach. He held extensive consultations with groups of priests and laity. In the end, he apparently hinted he had been misled previously about the ground reality in the archdiocese. Consequently, he came around to the idea of accepting a compromise formula that had been hammered out between a seven-member committee of bishops appointed by the Synod and the priests of the archdiocese. Soon the media became abuzz with the news that an amicable solution to the three-decade old dispute had at last been reached. But those hopes were immediately shattered. Bp Bosco Puthur, the newly appointed Apostolic Administrator of Ernakulam, issued a circular on behalf of the papal delegate saying, “Before returning to the Vatican, the papal delegate had told me that the Oriental Congregation, the Vatican’s Secretary of State and Pope Francis want us to abide by the decision of the Synod as a solution acceptable to both the parties could not be reached through consultations… May the peace that the angels promised at Jesus’s birth reign in the hearts of each of us, in our families, in the Church and in society.”
I don’t understand how peace can reign in hearts that are in turmoil, a turmoil that was needlessly created by powers that be for reasons that could hardly be called noble. Peace doesn’t fall from the heavens. A conducive atmosphere for it has to be created. When an unpalatable decision is thrust down the throat of six lakhs Catholics and their priests, how do you expect peace to prevail? If that was the intention of the synod, why did it appoint a seven-member committee of bishops to reach an amicable solution after talking with the stakeholders? For the priests and faithful of the archdiocese, the compromise formula arrived at by that committee is the synod’s final word on the subject. Accordingly, they celebrated Mass on Christmas as per the 50-50 formula and continue to celebrate the Mass in the way it has been for the past six decades.
The final-last-ultimate verdict of the Vatican is expected any time. It will most probably contain this quote from Prophet Samuel: “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice…” The prophet said that eleven centuries before Jesus, who said: “You have heard it was said, ‘Eye for an eye and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you do not resist an evil person… You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Jesus was preaching disobedience of the Old Testament moral code by replacing it with something drastically new. Jesus preached disobedience again when he told the Pharisees who found fault with his disciples for picking ears of corn to assuage their hunger: “Sabbath is for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
Jesus came to ring out the old and ring in the new. To those who are captives to the old, acceptance of the new will be disobedience. Those who embrace the new are rebels for them, just as Jesus was an insufferable rebel for the Jewish teachers of the law and priests. Vatican II rang out the old, which had deviated from the liberating teachings of Jesus after he was taken from the cradle and placed in Constantine’s palace and its pagan modes of worship, and rang in the new by celebrating the crib, around which angels, shepherds, wise men and animals gathered as worshippers. We are people of the New Testament, not of the Old Testament. If we are to live by the Old Testament, what role has ‘rebel’ Jesus in our lives?
You might then quote Jesus: “Think not that I have come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I have not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” Indeed, Jesus came to fulfil the law, but in its fulfilment, the law took on a drastically different mode of existence by becoming humanistic. The fulfilment of the crawling and ugly looking caterpillar is the high flying gorgeous butterfly. There is hardly anything common between the two. If you want to remain the crawling caterpillar, so be it, but don’t expect that from the priests and faithful of Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese. The will continue to fly and enjoy the freedom given by Christ the Rebel.