Trivandrum archdiocese of the indigenous Syro-Malankara Church is offering professional training to poor entrepreneurs from villages in this southern Indian district.
The trainees are taught fundamentals of management, budgeting, marketing and resource mobilization, which will help them open new industries and find self-employment, said archdiocesan social work director Father Thomas Varghese Vattaparambil.
The training will qualify entrepreneurs to receive help from Church-backed credit unions here. The archdiocese has 105 credit unions formed by villagers and 35 credit unions are involved in the training program.
Each of the 35 unions will send 10 participants for the program conducted by a professional training agency, Father Vattaparambil told UCA News.
Challa Muthu, a trainee, said the program has “showed us professional ways of accounting. We had never heard of budget for a small business.”
Father Vattaparambil said the entrepreneurship development program is among several schemes the archdiocese has launched for village development.
The agro-industrial archdiocese headed by Archbishop Benedict Mar Gregorios, an award-winning economics scholar of Kerala University, offers a self-employment program to help some 700 rural people with loans up to 12,000 rupees (US$387), including 40 percent subsidy.
Another project, Janasoubhagya (people´s welfare) imparts legal education to activists, organizes ecological and environmental programs for the poor and promotes rural health, Father Vattaparambil said.
The archdiocese´s six Jeevavardhini (life enhancement) centers promote education among rural women. The centers provide training to young women in house keeping, health, environment, nutrition and media education.
Women are also taught handicrafts as a means of supplementary income.
The indigenous religious order of Syro Malankarahopes its 75th anniversary of founding will begin the healing of the order, split more than 50 years ago into an Orthodox Syrian Church faction and a Syro-Malankara Catholic faction.
“As a jubilee memorial we plan to start a dialogue with our counterparts in the other Church,” Father Jerome Peedikaparampil, superior general of the Catholic faction of the Order of the Imitation of Christ told UCA News.
The jubilee year “will help us resume broken ties,” he said.
Plans will be finalized in September, Father Peedikaparampil added, when special programs for individual houses and members will be developed.
Popularly known as the Bethany Fathers, the Order of the Imitation of Christ was founded in the Orthodox Syrian Church of Malabar in 1919 by Father P.T. Geevargheese Panikkaruveetil with the aim of working for spiritual and liturgical renewal of the Orthodox Church.
The members wear saffron robes and try to preserve age-old Indian religious and ascetical traditions.
The order split in 1930 when Archbishop Mar Ivanios led a group of the Orthodox Church into communion with the Holy See. Ever since, the Catholic faction has also dedicated to the work of reunion of the separated brethren.
The Catholic faction was elevated to pontifical status in 1966.
The Bethany Orthodox faction now has about 12 priests while the Catholic faction has 102 priests working in 30 parishes, 80 seminarians and 32 institutions engaged in various apostolates.
One plan for the jubilee is to build 75 houses for poor families, according to Father Peedikaparampil.
Leaders of voluntary associations in the Trivandrum Syro Malankara archdiocese can now fight social exploitation with the help of free legal training provided by a Church social service society.
The Malankara social service society (MSS) has opened a legal aid center for voluntary organizations in Thiruvananthapuram, capital of Kerala state, 2,780 kilometers south of New Delhi.
MSS director Father Thomas Varghese Vattaparambil says the training course aims to advance the knowledge of the volunteer participants about citizen´s fundamental rights and duties.
The volunteers will help people out of the exploitation they suffer because of ignorance of the law, he said. Though Kerala is the most literate Indian state, its people are generally ignorant of laws, and several social welfare schemes go unutilized because of this, the MSS director said.
The course has become necessary because often “the same agencies entrusted to protect our rights are denying them,” Father Vattaparambil added.
The MSS course normally runs 30 days but can be divided into four, one-week sessions with breaks. Leading lawyers and senior government officials lead the training classes teaching basic aspects of civil rights and duties.
The first session began Feb. 22 with 36 trainees, including 28 women, all under 35 years old.
“The study of law is really enriching us,” said Vincent Ambilikkonam, 28, a participant. Learning that police have to provide a copy of the legal document `First Information Report´ to the accused was a revelation to me,” he said. Seldom do the police reveal that the accused also has rights, he added.
Anitha Aranad, 22, described as “heartening information” the provision that only a woman police officer can arrest or question a woman and that she cannot be kept in the police station after 5 p.m.
Selvy Panchimood said she better understands the use of the family courts to get justice for women now, and Chacko Thottappalyl said he was enlightened by the “immense possibilities for accident compensation.”
“We have come to know of several pension and welfare schemes that go unexploited,” said Vimala Nallimmood, a legal worker.
A participant said she is now determined to complain to the government consumer protection cell if she purchases poor quality products.
“This course will be a landmark in the scheme of development envisaged by the diocese,” said Manivarnan Mulloor, a Hindu participant.
The best announcement of the Good News in the East is the life witness of Religious, says Syro Malankara Archbishop Benedict Mar Gregorios of Trivandrum.
“In India nothing attracts more powerfully, nothing is admired more sincerely, than the life of renunciation,” said the 76-year-old prelate while opening the national assembly of the Conference of Religious of India (CRI) Jan. 4 in the southern city of Kochi.
Some 400 major superiors, which CRI officials claim is a record number, attended the six-day assembly on the theme “Consecrated Life and its Role in the Church and in the World.”
CRI is the national association of the 503 major superiors of the country´s 261 religious congregations that together have more than 100,000 members.
“Knowledge, brilliance, human accomplishments all fade out before an authentic life of sacrifice, prayer and humble service,” said Archbishop Gregorios, a member of the indigenous Order of the Imitation of Christ.
He urged participants to bring about a “spiritual revival of Christianity” in India, where Hindu holy men “explore the divine mystery and express it both in the limitless riches of myth and the accurately-defined insight of philosophy.”
Despite its two millennia in India, Archbishop Gregorios noted, Christianity has failed to contribute significantly to the country´s spiritual growth.
The archbishop observed that a life of faith has become risky amid “fast-spreading moral degeneration,” and religious life “doubly risky … like walking on the edge of a Himalayan cliff.”
“A sure guide in this context,” he added, “is the teaching and shepherding authority of the Church.”
Archbishop Gregorios lamented that dissent and confrontation has now become “a way of life,” and this “suicidal tendency” is also seen among Religious.
He said “unbridled liberty” threatens domestic and religious life, which has “perhaps been unreasonably over-protected through excessive structuralism.”
The prelate specifically warned the assembly to take serious note of the onslaught of cable television in the country, calling for vigilance and self- discipline to check “the worst forms of perversions” the satellite media brings into “the sanctuary of homes.”
He urged Religious to avoid “all ambiguity in the use of media” and to take bold initiatives to promote social and moral values.
Addressing the assembly Jan 6., Archbishop Giorgio Zur, apostolic pronuncio to India and Nepal, urged Religious to make their lifestyle and institutions really a “transparent witness” to their ideals.
“We need houses, we need higher learning, we need modern instruments; but everybody realizes that Religious live personally a life of simplicity.”
He said Religious should begin their “particular affectionate concern” for the poor with Christians, and grant them preferential admission to Church institutions.
He wants Religious to go to poor Catholic villagers with parish schools and extend their service to dioceses with limited resources and personnel.
CRI president Christian Brother Philip Pinto alerted the assembly that they are living in a time of transition and the “greatest crisis is the inability to view things differently.”
The assembly discussed the revitalization of CRI to make it more responsive to national and social issues. A three-year reorganization plan to achieve this goal was approved.
Archbishop Benedict Mar Gregorios of Trivandrum spreads not only the Gospel, but also seeds of an agricultural revolution.
And the bearded patriarch combats unemployment and promotes social revolution through a seedlings project in the southern Indian state of Kerala.
India´s federal government this year asked the 76-year-old Syro Malankara metropolitan to produce 50,000 pepper seedlings.
“This is recognition of the agricultural experiments we conduct on the two-acre campus of the bishop´s house,” Archbishop Gregorios told UCA News Sept. 28.
He said every parish and Church institution in his archdiocese has “at least a vegetable garden” where vegetables and fruits are grown.
“Kerala is small, but thickly populated. So we have to produce the maximum from the land,” the archbishop said. Research and development go hand in hand with love and commitment to change.
He said his research benefits all “the people around us, for the greater glory of God.”
He uses parishes, government agencies and visitors to his home to spread the message of revolution — a loving agricultural revolution.
“Anything on earth can grow in Kerala,” said the white-bearded archbishop wearing a cross-studded black miter as he escorted visitors around his garden.
A profusion of imported fruits, vegetables and flowers are grown here.
Seeds from Hawaii were given by Indian Vice President K.R. Narayanan, when he served as ambassador to the United States. The archbishop named the giant plants that came from them “Narayan.”
He also grows a new variety of zubabul, a fast growing tree whose leaves are “good cattle feed” and which provides wood for fuel and furniture.
His garden has high-yielding tomatoes and beans from America, Indo-American hybrid papaya and carotene papaya, which he said can treat eye illnesses.
“Agriculture is the only way to solve unemployment in India,” Archbishop Gregorios holds. “Most of our farmers are ignorant of these high-yielding varieties,” he explains, anxious to spread the good news further.
He supplies seeds and seedlings to governmental agencies for a fee. Christians get them free.
The Kerala state government sent 25 poor youth to his nursery for training in 1991.
The farmer archbishop uses only organic manure. He says this is the only solution for the average farmer due to the cost of chemical fertilizers.
Archbishop Gregorios said that following a national seminar on using mushrooms many people here took up mushroom production.
“It has become a profitable business now,” he added.
Archbishop Gregorios expanded to animal husbandry, starting with rabbits, and now including ducks, poultry and pigs.
“Our dairy provides us milk, gas (biogas) and manure,” Mar Gregorios said.
His sheep farm produces hundreds of lambs annually. He supplies lambs free for farmers to rear, but recipients must pay back two lambs in two years so that the service can help others.
“I do this with one intention — to help people help themselves,” he said.
Mar Gregorios also heads a farmers´ association in Thiruvananthapuram, some 2,780 kilometers south of New Delhi.
The association has 50 volunteer groups “silently spreading” the archbishop´s agricultural revolution.
The Syro Malankara Church (SMC), an oriental Catholic Church in the southern Indian state of Kerala, awaits papal approval for its episcopal synod, which would give it a more legitimate administrative authority as an Oriental Church.
SMC authorities have submitted a proposal for the episcopal synod to the Vatican.
“Our proposal is under serious consideration,” Archbishop Benedict Mar Gregorios of Trivandrum, the SMC´s metropolitan, told UCA News in early September.
The canonical establishment of the episcopal synod “will give the existing bishops´ conference much more authority,” added the archbishop.
The Church links its founding to Saint Thomas the Apostle, but it broke with Rome in 1653 over opposition to Portuguese missioners. The Church reunited with Rome and took the name Syro Malankara Church in 1930.
The other oriental group in India — the Syro Malabar Church — is beset with factional fights over liturgical and administrative renewal.
The Malankara Church has no episcopal synod as envisaged by the Oriental Code of Canon Law that went into effect in 1991.
“The synod is an important step in the self-rule of the Church,” explained the archbishop and added that now “important decision are taken by our bishops´ conference.”
The oriental canon law and Second Vatican Council documents provide for a patriarch for all 21 oriental Churches in the Catholic Church, according to Archbishop Gregorios, but only six of them have patriarchs now.
The Malankara Church with three dioceses and some 350,000 followers has only a metropolitan.
“How can Rome give us a patriarch, when our brother Church — Syro Malabar — which is 10 times bigger than us is not given a patriarch,” asked the archbishop.
Even if a patriarch is not instituted, the Syro Malankara Church can be governed by a synod of bishops with a metropolitan to head it, Archbishop Gregorios explained.
A patriarch to head the Church and a bishops´ synod as the supreme body to govern it makes a perfect administrative set up for each individual Church, said the archbishop.
If such a synod is allowed, the Syro Malankara Church will get a form of government envisaged by the oriental canon law, said the archbishop.
In September 1930 when Mar Ivanios, then a Jacobite bishop, reunited with Rome fewer than 20 people joined him.
Now, SMC has parishes in the Indian cities of Bangalore, Bhilai, Bhopal, Bombay, Madras, and New Delhi and in Chicago, New York City and Washington in the United States.
Preparations for a synod have been underway since the SMC´s gold jubilee in 1982.
No one knows when Rome will establish the Syro Malankara Bishops Synod, but everyone knows that it is a major step in the growth of the reunited Church, Archbishop Gregorios said.
A profile of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Archbishop of Trivandrum.
By, Sister Christian Molidor, R.S.M.
Benedict Mar Gregorios is a man who hurries in a heat of hope!
The Syro-Malankara Archbishop of Trivandrum is an elegant, thin man in perpetual motion. When introduced, he mocked his wispy beard by telling us that children often asked why he never cut it. He laughingly responded, “Would you trim a flower?”
Picture his residence in Trivandrum, Kerala, India – a wooden building with breeze-collecting porches surrounded by exotic plants and flowers, gardens bursting with crops (some unknown and untried throughout his country), rubber trees, animal shelters, chemical laboratories, distilleries for making honey syrup and wine, quail and chicken coops, hybrid-seed-processing areas, libraries and research rooms…picture this, and you will “see” just a small portion of his world.
Our first meeting with Mar Gregorios was at a luncheon. Msgr. Robert L. Stern, Sister Kathryn Callahan, C.S.C., Kamini Desai Sanghvi and I were served quail (grown on his farm), fresh pineapple (grown on his farm), cashew nuts (grown on his farm), honey spread on sweet bread (credit bees with the honey but the bread was home-baked), and coconut milk (you guessed it).
During the meal, Mar Gregorios quoted literature from half the writers of the Western world. He quoted Horace’s poetry in the original Latin. He is fluent in Malayalam and Tamil, the languages of his archdiocese. He also speaks fluent Italian, French, Portuguese and English.
He maintains correspondence with scientific societies and academic associations throughout the world; collects the latest research on plant life, agricultural techniques, fast-growing trees, mushrooms, small game; breeds dairy cows, anthurium flowers, cacti and roses, spices. You name it, this 76-year-old priest has studied and knows it.
He charmed our group with tales of his travels and exemplified the concept that cheerfulness is the most visible sign of wisdom. Most of all, he made us think.
Mar Gregorios is the major archbishop of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, a community that achieved full communion with the Church of Rome in 1930. Ordained a bishop in 1955, his efforts to renew the Syriac liturgy within a truly Indian context has led to the Church’s tremendous growth. Today more than 300,000 people are baptized members. When the archbishop was ordained in 1955, the Syro-Malankara Church numbered just over 70,000 members.
Mar Gregorios has initiated programs with the Tamils in the south, and with the dispossessed – the so-called “untouchables” – in his own state of Kerala.
We met the archbishop on several of his visits to New York and were certainly familiar with his projects funded by the benefactors of Catholic Near East Welfare Association. Now we were seeing him for the first time on his own turf.
We came to see what we might do. We left feeling he had done much for us.
This simple priest/erudite scholar insists, “Our Lord didn’t come to save souls alone, but to save people! We must realize that the God who gave us a body and who himself assumed a body, cannot be thought of as indifferent to our material needs, for he made us to live in human dignity – dignity that presupposes a certain material well-being.”
Mar Gregorios explained that many of his people do not possess that minimal material comfort; they live in painful circumstances, knowing only hunger and want. Eighty percent of the Indian population in India live on farms, as opposed to six percent in the U.S. Most of these farms are as small as a quarter of an acre.
Mar Gregorios stated that India “must experience an agrarian revolution to precede any industrial revolution; to do this, scientific farming must be done and many of the farms must be consolidated. And if the farmers are removed from the land,” he continued, “there must be a place for them in society, there must be homes and jobs waiting for them. Even more vexing is the problem of raising the education level of millions of people to make such a revolution possible.”
Such a revolution is already in progress – conceived, developed and nourished by this Renaissance man of Trivandrum.
Farming is a poor profession in Trivandrum. A farmer gets 10 percent of his profits, the rest is absorbed by costs. This is why the archbishop works so diligently on farming and farm products.
Small demonstration farms, attached to local parishes, have been set up in several areas. Some of these land parcels are funded by donors of Catholic Near East.
These small plots of land cover about three acres. Rubber trees are grown to help fund the food crops. The newest techniques are employed, and the people can see, and eat, the results for themselves. Thus, methods of agriculture that were previously suspect can be introduced and win popular acceptance through the teaching and the example of the church.
Mar Gregorios has also encouraged the establishment of poultry farms and backyard chicken coops to supplement the protein-poor diet of many of the people who now eat rice three times a day.
A new hybrid grass for cattle has also been developed. It grows rapidly in the Indian climate and can be cut frequently. The villagers are then encouraged to collect seeds for planting on their own farms.
Fast-growing tree seedlings are given to farmers and proper planting techniques explained at evening sessions to the men and women attending the classes. Mushrooms, a cash crop as are cashew nuts, are cultivated in specially constructed rooms and processed in the places they are grown, saving shipping costs.
Perhaps the buildings and research laboratories are crude by Western standards (the air-conditioning in one chemical plant was a low rack that held heavy cotton toweling periodically soaked with water. The evaporation caused cooling for the entire room) but the old cliche held true: “It works!”
Mar Gregorios has never been swayed by the “small is beautiful” economic philosophy. Early on he recognized that a healthy economy and society needed both the large and the small. Indeed, the two are mutually interdependent.
“Look at the abundance of raw rubber in Kerala…yet the processing and all the products are made elsewhere…so are the profits.” Catholic Near East recently funded a processing plant to keep profits in Trivandrum Archdiocese.
The typical cottage industry was not sufficient, so he built factories where men and women can be employed in greater numbers. The garment factory in Nalanchira, for example, is relatively large, and employees design and produce small articles of clothing and accessories. On the day of our visit, a shopping bag (designed as a promotional piece for a department store in Germany) was sewn and then screen-printed in three colors.
Fabrics are hand-blocked, but on an assembly line workbench where designs can be stamped on a full bolt of cloth by several people, rather than piece by piece. It has two outstanding features: the factory and its products create no pollution, and women with a limited education can be employed without danger to their health and safety.
Mar Gregorios sighed, “Kerala is a rich country with poor people.” But I observed a sparkle in the people. Every day they are seeking new ways to survive; they have no time for littleness; they are proud of who they are. The Malayalis feel they are the true Indians, never conquered or put into submission by outsiders. And this shows in their faces, in their actions.
“Education is the problem of poverty in India, and one which the church must address if she is to help her people live in decency, and if her protestations of love for all people are to remain credible.”
Catholic Near East has long been involved in this critical field of education. Catholic schools and colleges in India have achieved a reputation for providing a thorough education while respecting the freedom of conscience of their students.
It is this reservoir of respect and good will that enables Mar Gregorios, religious men and women, and the laity, to demonstrate their love and concern for the people – the power of Christian charity in action, not just words.
Parishioners from Marghandom gather to greet Mar Gregorios. (photo: Sister Christian Molidor, R.S.M.)Benedict Mar Gregorios, Syro-Malankara Archbishop of Trivandrum, Kerala, India. (photo: Sister Christian Molidor, R.S.M.)English ducks in Mar Gregorios’ yard. (photo: Sister Christian Molidor, R.S.M.)Women make up the majority of the employees at the garment factory operated by the archbishop. (photo: Sister Christian Molidor, R.S.M.)Mar Gregorios, Msgr. Stern and members of the Association’s staff in a welcoming procession in Marghandom. (photo: Sister Christian Molidor, R.S.M.)The attempt to make the church relevant to the poor has brought with it a rethinking of the spirituality of the parish priest, said Mar Gregorios. “First we must go among our people, feed the poor, heal the sick, wipe away the tears of despair and than preach the Kingdom of God.” (photo: Sister Christian Molidor, R.S.M.)
Edit: Sister Christian Molidor, R.S.M., a professional photographer and former programs director at CNEWA, served the agency for nearly 30 years. She entered into eternal life in 2013.
Republished In honor of ONE magazine’s 50th-anniversary year, the Catholic Near East Welfare Associationblog series, ONE @ 50: From the Vault, aims to revive and explore the wealth of articles published in ONE magazine throughout its history. A standout amid dozens of profiles, this feature, originally published in April 1992, highlights Benedict Mar Gregorios and the wealth of knowledge and wisdom he shared.
Father Jerome Peedikaparambil has been elected superior general of the Order of Imitation of Christ (OIC).
Father Peedikaparambil succeeds Father Louis Moolaveetil, who was shot dead by unidentified people in the central Indian town of Nagpur, about 600 kilometers east of Bombay, a few months ago.
He was elected Feb. 19 by the congregation´s general chapter at its headquarters in Kottayam, about 2,600 kilometers south of New Delhi.
The new superior general now works as chaplain for the Syro-Malankara Catholics in the Chicago archdiocese, United States.
He studied pastoral counseling in Rome and sociology at Chicago University.
OIC, the Order of Bethany Fathers, was founded in 1919 by Archbishop Mar Ivanios, who was then a priest of the Orthodox Syrian Church of Malabar.
The congregation initially worked for the spiritual and liturgical renovation of the Orthodox Church and evangelization of India.
The congregation was the main force behind the orthodox reunion with the Catholic Church in 1930.
In 1955 the Holy See´s Congregation for the Oriental Churches approved its constitution and in 1966 OIC was elevated to pontifical status.
OIC members wear saffron robes — traditional Indian color for ascetics.
It now has 118 members and houses in all three Malankara dioceses. It manages some 25 schools, nature-cure centers and other institutions.
A pall of gloom fell on the Church following the murder of Imitation of Christ Superior General Father Louis Moolaveetil in Nagpur, central India, Sept 17.
Father Moolaveetil and Father Mathew Thuruthil were on their way to the airport when two unidentified youths on a motorbike shot at them. They assailants decamped with the superior general´s brief case that contained 5,000 rupees (US$200) and two air tickets.
Father Thuruthil told UCA News Sept 25 that his superior fell on his lap with a “big wound on his chest.” The bullet had pierced his heart and death was “instantaneous.”
The priest said they were coming from their new house at Bhilai in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
“We were to board the Bombay flight to Kerala,” he explained.
Father Moolaveetil, 55, was about to complete his six-year term as superior general of the Order of the Imitation of Christ, a congregation belonging to the Syro-Malankara Church.
More than 10,000 people attended the Sept. 20 funeral at the Bethany ashram, the congregation´s house in Tiruvalla, some 150 kilometers north of Kerala, the state capital of Trivandrum.
Archbishop Benedict Mar Gregorios of Trivandrum received the body. Mourners included Kerala legislative assembly speaker P.P. Thankachan and Indian Orthodox Church head Baselios Mar Thoma Mathews II, Bishops Geevarghese Mar Thimotheos of Tiruvalla, Peter Thuruthikonam of Vijayapuram and Kuriakose Kunnassery of Kottayam.
Condemning the incident, the state legislative assembly urged the federal and Maharashtra state governments Sept. 19 to take immediate action to apprehend the culprits.
Kerala Catholic Bishops´ Council president Archbishop Cornelius Elenjikal of Verapoly said the incident has saddened the Church and expressed the hope that Father Moolaveetil´s sacrifice will help Church and society.
“It is very sad that such incidents happen repeatedly in a country known for its ancient civilization and secular thoughts,” he added.
All Kerala Catholic Congress president M.D. Joseph expressed anguish over increasing incidents of atrocities on missioners in the country.
Montfort Brother John, secretary of the Conference of Religious India, told UCA News Sept. 25 that the incident symbolized a cult of violence now spreading in the country.
It is “just another case of murder and banditry,” he said.
A Syro Malankara rite Mass attended by nearly 5,000 people Nov. 9 inaugurated the biennial meeting of the Catholic Bishops´ Conference of India (CBCI) here in the northeastern state of Meghalaya.
Celebrated by CBCI president Archbishop Benedict Mar Gregorios Varghese Thangalathil of Trivandrum and concelebrated by bishops of the other two rites, it was the first such Mass witnessed by local people.
The 105 bishops taking part from the 126-member CBCI discussed priestly formation, the problems of ´Dalit´ (low caste) Christians, minority rights in education, inroads made by non-Christian sects, and solidarity with the Church in Sri Lanka.
Addressing the opening session, Archbishop Gregorios urged fellow bishops to further promote the spirit of reconciliation and communion in the Church.
Referring to what he called a “historic” May 1987 letter from Pope John Paul II to the Indian bishops, Archbishop Gregorios said the future of the local Church “will depend upon the measures” bishops take to put the papal directive into practice.
He said it was “a great grace” that the pope´s letter was received “willingly and with full loyalty by all.”
In his letter, the pope tried to settle centuries-old inter-rite rivalry in the Indian Catholic Church by asking the bishops to form three episcopal conferences, for Latin, Syro Malabar and Syro Malankara rites.
“We have successfully implemented the direction of the Holy Father about the constitution of three conferences of the three rites in India,” Archbishop Gregorios told a public function attended by about 2,000 people. He said the Vatican approved the new constitution.
The CBCI president said it would be “suicidal” for the Catholic Church if it failed to witness “Christ in perfect union,” especially when “Muslims all over the world and even some Christian sects are propagating their own convictions and ideologies.”
Though lamenting a lack of lay involvement in Church affairs, he said he found an awakening among Indian lay people, citing the National Convention of Catholics organized mostly by lay people in Bombay last June.
He called the convention a “unique event” and a “great success,” where “500 participants, mostly lay people, prayerfully reflected on the life and mission of believers in modern India.”
He lauded evangelization work in the northeast, where the Church will celebrate its centennial in 1990. The region, with eight dioceses in seven states, has 800,000 Catholics served by 476 priests and 1,209 nuns.
“When all over the world evangelization is very much in the thoughts of Christians, here (northeast India) there is a very successful example spread over a century,” he said.
Archbishop Gregorios, leader of the Malankara Church, said rites “duly and canonically accepted by the Catholic Church form a category quite different and transcending all other diversities.
“The full and sincere acceptance of this truth is a condition ´sine qua non´ for any progress of the Church in India,” the archbishop said, adding that “refusal to accept it will weaken it and make it barren.”
He also called for a massive program to provide solidarity with “our brethren who are oppressed and victimized.” He said more than 60 percent of Christians in India belong to low caste groups.
The archbishop called on the Catholic community to show “communion” by actually sharing spiritual and material goods.
Admitting that Dalit Christians find little consolation even within the Church, he said depressed (Dalit) Christians are victims of “gross injustice at the hands of the public authority.”
The Indian bishops expressed concern over the rise in communal violence in various parts of the country. The meeting began amid fear of large scale communal violence over Hindu fundamentalist plans to build a temple on the site of a historic mosque at Ayodhya, about 450 kilometers east of Delhi.
The bishops also prayed for victims of recent riots in the northern state of Bihar, where clashes between Hindus and Muslims left more than 200 dead.
