Ponmala

“They spat on him, and took the stick and hit him over the head. When they had finished mocking him, they took the robe off and put his own clothes back on him. They led him out to crucify him’ (Mt 27: 30,31). A re-enacting of this was what exactly happened in Ernakulam’s St Mary’s Basilica on 23rd and 24th of December 2022. There was just one difference though: Then it was Roman soldiers who did it to Jesus, but those who claim to be his ardent disciples did it now. They did it under the watch of Kerala’s police, who were there on request. The most disconcerting aspect of it all was the role played by hired hooligans and the police in the desecration of the Holy Eucharist.

It was Cardinal Alencherry who first used hooligans for staging a gherao in the Bishop’s House at Ernakulam. It happened on 4 January 2018 when the cardinal was scheduled to attend the presbyters’ council meeting called for discussing the report of a commission that had inquired into alleged murky deals that had taken place under the his watch. A handful of supporters of the cardinal gheraoed him in his office and prevented him from attending the meeting. The very fact that those who prevented the cardinal from attending the meeting were and still are his ardent supporters and that he initiated no disciplinary action against them were proof enough to conclude that it was a stage-managed affair planned and executed at his behest as a ruse for him to escape discussing a report that convincingly established his culpability in the land deals.

Four years later, as Christians across Kerala celebrated Palm Sunday, Cardinal Alencherrylead the Mass and the procession in Ernakulam’s cathedral basilica under heavy police protection. Recently, after discussing with the two opposing camps, the Permanent Synod of the Church had proposed that status quo be maintained until the full synod met in January 2023. Abp Andrews Thazhath immediately approached the Kerala High Court for police protection, which the court readily granted. But when he used that to celebrate the uniform system of the Mass in the cathedral basilica, the parishioners prevented him, triggering violence outside the church. Under that pretext, the police denied the faithful entry to the cathedral by locking its gates. Later, when the cathedral opened for worship, hooligans and the police took over. The Church will find it hard now on to come out of their grip.

What is left of ecclesiastical and moral authority when the hierarchy uses hooligans and the police to enforce its decisions? The synod could have initiated ecclesiastical disciplinary action against the priests and laity who flouted its directives, but they did not do so either because their decision was not canonically valid enough to impose disciplinary action or because they had no patience to wait for its time consuming and cumbersome process. It also appears that they have some yet unknown time-bound ulterior motives attached to the hasty implementation of their decision concerning the uniform system of Mass. They wanted a quick-fix, for which they used antisocial elements and the police. They have also entered into an unholy alliance with a ruling party that has been harbouring hatred for the Church from the very beginning of its existence.

PinarayiVijayan, the communist chief minister of Kerala, who is also the home minister who controls the police, is himself embroiled in financial scandals; there is a case pending against him in the Supreme Court. It hurt one’s Christian conscience when Cardinal Alencherry declared at a public function that PinarayiVijayan would have been suitable candidate to be made bishop if he were a baptised Catholic. That was seen as his way of expressing thanks for the clean chit Pinaryi’s police gave in the case relating to his land deals.  Pinarayi’s police tortured a Catholic boy and pulled out his toe nails, allegedly going overboard to please the cardinal in a case that was just a matter of regular investigation. It is suspected that the police planted incriminating matter in the computer of the accused boy, a la what the NIA did in the case of Stan Swamy.

The cardinal’s camp accuses the priests and faithful of Ernakulam-Angamaly diocese of disobedience. But have not they set an example for it by not obeying Vatican’s directive to pay compensation for the losses Enrnakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese suffered in the questionable land sales executed by the cardinal? To buttress their argument, they quote this from Prophet Samuel: “Samuel said: ‘Which does the Lord prefer: obedience or offerings and sacrifices? It is better to obey him than to sacrifice the best sheep to him’” (1Samuel 15: 22). But they conveniently forget this passage of the New Testament: “As his disciples walked along with him, they began to pick the ears of the corn. So the Pharisees said to Jesus, ‘Look, it is against our Law to do that on the Sabbath!’… And Jesus concluded, ‘The Sabbath was made for the good of man; man was not made for the Sabbath’” (Mk 2: 23, 27). With that one sentence Jesus laid the foundation of humanism: Far more important than obeying the law is the wellbeing of those who are to obey it. That statement represented a paradigm shift in the concept of obedience, implying that disobedience into play in all things progressive that are unpalatable to traditionalists.

To conclude, a thought on the dispute over the Mass facing the people and the Mass facing the alter, which led to the sacrilege committed against it. When the celebrant says, “Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is my body… Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my blood… Do this in memory of me”, who is the ‘you’ he is addressing, the altar or the people of God? If he is addressing the latter, should he not say it facing them?