India’s Forum for Catholic Unity has written to Chennai Archbishop AM Chinnappa, accusing him of facilitating followers of the Syro-Malabar rite in a bid to recover prime city properties from the Latin church in the name of St Thomas the Apostle. In a letter to Dr Chinnappa, the Forum claimed that Syro-Malabar Rite members, living in Chennai for generations and have fully assimilated in the local church practising Latin rites, were suddenly calling themselves as the ‘true children of St Thomas’ and discreetly asking the archdiocese to return the ‘illicit property’ and ‘clear the debts’ due to them, the Express Buzz reports.
The letter, dated October 8, accused Archbishop Chinnappa of unilaterally facilitating the bid of the SMR members to create an independent SMR Bishopric in Chennai.
The letter accused Archbishhop Chinnappa of directing parish priests to undertake a virtual racial profiling of SMR Catholics and segregate them from the Latin Catholics with whom they have been living for decades.
When the discreet demand for the return of properties of St Thomas was first made in December 2000 by the Ayyanavaram pastrol centre, which was set up by the Irijalakuda diocese on the pretext of attending to some matters concerning the welfare of SMR population, the matter was brought before the Convention of Forum for Catholic Unity on November 11, 2001.
The convention attended by over 100 priests and members of the laity had then clearly resolved that there was no question of having a parallel SMR parish in Chennai, the letter said.
However, on December 21, 2008, Archbishop Chinnappa signed a decree granting 10 personal parishes to the SMR population. This, the letter alleged, was done against the wishes of the Kerala Catholic Association, Chennai and senior citizens of SMR.
The forum alleged that the decision was ‘unilateral, unprincipled, unethical and undemocratic and therefore unacceptable’ and demanded that the decree be rescinded, the Express Buzz says.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to us or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that we agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
SIC: CTHNAS