The Syro-Malabar Major Archiepiscopal assembly of 2024 that was convened in Palai diocese for three days discussed three topics. They were: 1. Faith formation, 2. The mission of the laity, and 3. Making the Syro-Malabar Community Consciousness strong. In the Assembly 348 members participated, who were mainly laity, religious, priests representatives and bishops. In the Vatican, Pope Francis nominated 70 members, who were priests, consecrated women, deacons, and laypeople, with the power to vote in the Synod of bishops on Synodality. This was a revolutionary move by the Pope. The Pope spoke of an equality of all in baptism “to live more intensely in our ecclesial communion, in which the diversity of charisms, vocations, and ministries are harmoniously integrated, animated by the same baptism, which makes us all sons and daughters in the Son.” On September 8, 2021 during the general audience in the Paul Vl Hall, the Pope spoke of “establishing an equality between man and woman which was revolutionary at the time and which needs to be reaffirmed even today.”

As regards Faith Formation, the first topic of discussion of our Assembly, nothing creative has happened. There was no mention on the methodology of imparting faith. Today, in majority of eparchies, the Sunday school is conducted with all the decorum of university education. The Directory for Catechesis of the Vatican clearly states it “should distance itself as much as possible from instruction which is typical of a school” (DFC, 297). Faith is very subjective and its imparting cannot be treated in the same way as topics of instruction are treated in a university. The danger of objectification of the spirit is nothing but crucifixion. Objectification of the spirit fatally leads to idolatry. Christianity is personal and it concerns the interior subjectivity. Catechesis is not about imparting information about Jesus, “but it needs to take the form of a practical experience, of an apprenticeship in the faith and in getting to know Jesus through a personal experience.” Do we demonstrate the beauty of God and inspire human beings to ask questions of an existential nature, which would ultimately lead to God? No such creative suggestion to improve the imparting of faith came from the assembly. Did it have a word of appreciation for the thousands of lay people freely involved in Sunday school teaching?

The strengthening of the samudayam (community), which was the third topic of discussion, was aimed at acquiring the clout of the NSS, which represents the Nair community, or of the SNDP, which represents the Ezhava community. Emmanuel Levinas, the renowned Jewish Ethical thinker, said in an interview: “There is a Jewish proverb which says that ‘the other’s material needs are my spiritual needs’; it is this disproportion or asymmetry which characterizes the ethical refusal of the first truth of ontology—the struggle to be. Ethics is, therefore, against nature, because it forbids the murderousness of my natural will to put my own existence first.” Caste, community and high or low births are myths of the sacred and of magic, as well as “another form of the irrational”, namely, the mythic. Levinas relentlessly criticizes discourses of nature, naturalness, and naturalism in the name of the ethical. This is an issue of the struggle to be or to assert one’s being. This is not ethical, but ethnic assertion over others. It is more communal than Christian. Christian life is an ongoing struggle against nature. It is a transcendence of the natural.

Finally, there was a statement in the final document of the Assembly which directed that all eparchies must implement the Synodal form of Holy Mass. This appeared nowhere in the discussions of the Assembly or in the agreed proposals; it came as the final three suggestions from the floor out of the 70 and odd made in the zero hour of the Assembly. Their inclusion in the statement went against all the stated principles of the Assembly. Pope Francis told the Synod of Bishops on October 7, 2015: “As Saint John Chrysostom says, ‘Church and Synod are synonymous’, inasmuch as the Church is nothing other than the ‘journeying together’ of God’s flock along the paths of history towards the encounter with Christ the Lord, then we understand too that, within the Church, no one can be ‘raised up’ higher than others.” Solitary voices were “raised up” in the assembly to impose uniformity instead of unity.