Synod of the Eastern rite Syro-Malabar Church has decided to implement a uniform mode of celebrating mass in all its 35 dioceses from Nov. 28, ignoring the opposition from a section of priests and laity. All dioceses will celebrate the liturgy in a uniform way by next April 17,  Easter Sunday of 2022, said the synod in an Aug. 27 statement, issued at the end of its week-long online gathering.
The synod decision follows Pope Francis’ letter on July 6, which asked the Church to implement a standardized form of liturgy, as agreed by the synod of Bishops in 1999. The Church has been divided over the liturgical celebration for more than four decades with some priests celebrating the Mass facing the congregation, while some faced the altar against the congregation.
The synod two decades ago agreed that all its priests will face the congregation during the Mass until the Eucharistic prayer, and then again from Communion to the end of the Mass. During the Eucharistic prayer, they will face the altar against the congregation.
However, a section of priests and laity opposed it and sought papal intervention. They did not want priests to stand facing the altar, against the congregation during the Mass.
The latest papal letter asked to implement the 1999 synod decision as “an important step towards increasing stability and ecclesial communion” in the Church, based in southern Indian Kerala state.
The synod “unanimously welcomed” the papal letter and thanked “his intervention for the unity and growth” of the Church, the synod statement said.
As a first step of implementing the decision, all cathedral churches, pilgrim centres, religious houses and minor seminaries will implement the decision on Novem. 18, the beginning of the Church’s liturgical year.
Some bishops, who expressed difficulties in implementing the decision in their whole diocese, can introduce the uniform mode of celebration starting with all possible parishes on Nov. 18.
“By effective catechesis, the uniform mode shall be gradually introduced in the whole eparchy as early as possible, not later than Easter 2022,” the statement said.
However, soon after the decision was announced, a group of people under the banner of the Archdiocesan Movement for Transparency (AMT) protested in front of Mount St Thomas, the headquarters of the Church in Kerala’s Ernakulum district.

A Catholic official in India has criticized as “politically motivated” a federal commission’s recommendations to curtail the rights of schools run by religious minorities such as Christians.
The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), in a study released last week, sought to bring minority schools, most of them run by Christian institutions, under its right to education and universal elementary education policies.
The federal government makes it mandatory to include underprivileged children in schools under its Right to Education (RTE) Act and provides elementary education to all children aged 6-14 under a universal education scheme.
However, the Supreme Court of India declared the RTE Act inapplicable to schools with minority status while upholding their right to establish and administer institutions of their choice.
“This study, which targets Christians and Muslims, may be politically motivated,” Fr Maria Charles, secretary of the Indian Catholic bishops’ commission for education and culture, told.
He said minority-run institutions share the responsibility of offering good education to the poor and marginalized while reminding the government of its responsibility to provide good education to children who are deprived of it.

They say marriages are made in heaven but in the western Indian state of Gujarat, a dubious syndicate of paid agents is playing matchmaker for the mostly jobless boys from the prosperous Patel community and young girls from the indigenous Adivasi communities. The consequences are evidently disturbing and causing much pain and loss to the poor tribal people, who are highly protective of their girls like any class or caste community in India.
Bharatiya Tribal Party leader Raj Vasava says this has been a common practice among the Hindu Patel men to buy tribal women for marriage. But now it is being resented by the tribal communities. “It is a cultural assault and cannot be allowed,” he said.
The Patels, who are socially, economically and politically the most influential community in Gujarat, have no other way to deal with their skewed sex ratio of 700 girls for every 1,000 boys.
The state has some 10 million tribal people among its 62 million population. The state also has some 350,000 Christians, an estimated half of them are tribal people. While selecting brides, the Patels do not distinguish between Christian and Hindu tribal people, a Petel leader said.

The ongoing “drama” between Chinese Catholics and the nation’s communist leaders has three stages, said Chinese Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-Fai, the Vatican’s nuncio to Greece.
The current stage in the drama, in effect since 2013, is one of “shrinking and getting confused,” Hon said.
“As a result of the drama, people feel so disoriented, disconnected,” Hon said in his recent keynote address to the 28th international conference of the U.S.-China Catholic Association, held at Jesuit-run Santa Clara University.
Hon cited three major players in each stage of the drama: the communist regime, the church in China and the Vatican. At this time, the Vatican was “trying to normalize the diplomatic relationship” with China, he noted. “The Holy See encouraged the Catholics to remain faithful, stating that an ‘independent church’ cannot be the ‘Catholic Church,’” Hon added.

Roots of Peace founder Heidi Kuhn is on a dead-line-driven, life-or-death mission to get her nearly 400 employees out of Afghanistan by Aug. 31.
The Taliban took over the organization’s com-pound in Kabul Aug. 15.
President Joe Biden vowed Aug. 24 in a statement with G7 leaders to stick to the end-of-the-month deadline he set to complete evacuation of “Americans, third-country nationals and Afghans who were allies in the war.”
In an Aug. 25 news conference, the Taliban announced that Afghans will no longer be able to leave the country.
Kuhn, a Catholic mother of four from San Rafael, California, launched rootsofpeace.org in 1997 to clear war-scarred fields in Afghani-stan and other countries of land mines and convert them into life-sustaining farmland.
In Afghanistan alone, Roots of Peace has helped plant over 5 million trees, created over 100,000 full-time jobs and facilitated exports of fruits, nuts and spices to new markets that by 2020 valued $1.4 billion. The Taliban’s attack on the Roots of Peace compound in mid-August occurred as local workers began the year’s harvest of grapes and other fruits of the vine.
In addition to working to secure the safety of her Afghan workers in Kabul, Kuhn and her organization are helping rural farmers throughout the country bring the harvest to market without interruption. The loss of the ready crops and resulting income would further devastate the country and its people, Kuhn said.

All the 456 priests of the Arch-diocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly have written to Pope Francis saying they want to continue to offer Mass facing people, a practice that the Syro-Malabar eparchy has followed for the past 50 years. The memorandum was sent to the prefect of the Oriental Congregation in Rome and the apostolic nuncio in India on August 10, as the Syro-Malabar Synod prepared to discuss Pope Francis’ letter on the controversial issue of liturgy.
The memorandum was also signed by some priests of religious congregations working in the Syro-Malabar archdiocese.

Bishop Jacob Barnabas of Gurgaon died of post Covid-19 complications at noon on August 26 in a private hospital in New Delhi. He was 60.
Bishop Bernabas is the fifth Catholic prelate in India to die of Covid-19 and its complications.
The other bishops who died of Covid-19 were Paul Alois Lakra of Gumla in Jharkhand on June 16, retired Archbishop Antony Anandara-yar of Pondicherry-Cuddalore on May 5, and Basil Bhuriya of Jhabua in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, the next day. Retired Bishop Joseph Pastor Neelankavil of Sagar Syro-Malabar diocese died on February 17.

The Kerala High Court on August 12 said that Cardinal George Alencherry must face trial in the land deal case. The court upheld the verdict of a district sessions court that on August 24, 2019, asked the cardinal and two others to stand trial in the case. The court has dismissed six petitions submitted by Cardinal Alencherry.

The Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development announced on 24 August that the pontiff is sending 100,000 euros in emergency aid to the people of Vietnam, which is in a state of dire crisis due to the socio-economic fallout from the pandemic.
In Vietnam, the pope’s act of solidarity joins the Catholic Church’s action in favour of COVID-19 victims, which continues with unreserved dedication.