The Church authority always speaks in the canonical legal language. This legal language is something that the parishioners may not understand nor can the parish priest impose. The style and mood of the authority towards Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese is one of imposition and enactment at any cost. The authority speaks only of obedience and is not concerned about the pastoral difficulties involved. A parish priest is simply not in a position to impose. We do not think that pastoral problems are to be dealt with Cannon laws alone. The matter in question is of an orientation (it has nothing to do with faith or morals), which was legal and was practised for about 50 years in the parish. The Synod all of a sudden made it illegal and is compelling the parish priests to impose it. One cannot in conscience impose something that will have very serious consequences.
It is good to remember that canon lawyers cannot be “state clerks” ticking off compliance, pope Francis has said. Instead, they must promote and protect the primary right of the faithful, which is to be evangelized and led to an encounter with Christ. The goal of a canon lawyer cannot be “to seek convenient solutions to legal problems or to attempt certain balancing acts,” which could result in “rigid formalistic and bureaucratic frameworks that neglect true rights,” the pope said on February 20, 2023. And since “reality is superior to any idea,” the application of the law relies on the virtue of “juridical prudence that discerns what is truly just” for the individual involved and for the church community itself.
The entire Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese is protesting the imposing of a particular form of the mass, which they see as a retributory act of the Synod against whistle-blowers of a corruption case involving the Major Archbishop in a land deal. The High Court of Kerala has come to the conclusion that there was “criminal conspiracy” in the deal, and the Supreme Court of India agreed with that finding. But for the Synod “it is what everyone does and no moral failure was involved.” Those who are incapable of defending divine and moral laws are frightening the archdiocese with Cannon laws. The issue at stake is not a canonical problem but a serious pastoral problem. Antigone of Sophocles defended her decision to bury her brother in spite of the legal death-threat of the king. She, on the other hand, appeals to the transcendent Law that all the dead, without any discrimination, deserve respect: “For not now or yesterday does this law exist, but for eternity, and none knows where it comes from.”
The individual faithful cannot be derived totalistically from the Church, nor can the Church be derived individualistically from the multitude of individual faithfuls. This leads to a relationship between authority and free obedience within the Church that likewise resists sociological explanation: The Church’s authority is the authority of the servant – hearing the Lord within and ascertaining His voice with the sensus fidei of the faith community. Here the issue is so simple that it could be settled without pride or prejudice, collectively discerning what Lenin did, there is no class struggle but only dictatorship of the proletariat.
Socrates’ execution will not alleviate matters. His judges attempt to subdue the spirit by force, an undertaking that will not be successful. He pioneers a new method of experiencing the divine that threatens traditional ways. Romano Guardini very openly interprets it as the ultimate “essence” of a thing at which all our questioning must come to an end: “The meaning of all things lies beyond them. Philosophy is the practice of death, a decision for life in accordance with the spirit, death. This state of tension between turning to God and turning to the world, this ‘dialectic’ between ‘two contrary movements.’” Does this not imbue the Socratic dialogue with an ultimate, almost absolute meaning? Considering this, does not Socrates’ dialogue, a conversation he carries on, beyond any of his human partners, with the God of spiritual light, reveal itself to be a form of deep piety that comprehends its own existence on the basis of God’s Word? Unfortunately, the Synod refuses this method, for they are not ready to compromise the finality of their power.