Priests and Catholics have decided to ignore Bishop Bosco Puthur, apostolic administrator of the Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese, and the newly appointed members of the curia, said Father Jose Vailikodath, spokesperson of the Archdiocesan Protection Committee, a body of priests in the Archdiocese.
“We will not cooperate with them,” Vailikodath said in an Oct. 9 statement.
The statement came hours after Puthur and his curia members, escorted by police, entered the Major Archbishop’s House at 5 a.m.
The police evicted two priests and a couple of lay Catholics from the Major Archbishop’s House. They stayed in the Major Archbishop’s house as part of their continued protest against Puthur’s refusal to ordain eight deacons.
The protestors say Puthur's refusal violates a July 2024 agreement to settle the archdiocese's decades-long liturgy dispute.
As protest gained momentum, Puthur fled the Archbishop’s House on Sept. 26 night after his then curia members vacated their offices in protest against his decision not to ordain the deacons.
Puthur insists that he will not ordain the deacons until they give a written undertaking to celebrate the official Mass approved by the Church’s Synod of Bishops.
Most archdiocesan priests refuse to follow the rubrics of the official Mass, which ask them to turn to the altar during Eucharistic prayer.
The deacons refused to comply with the demand, saying the vast majority of the more than half a million Catholics were opposed to the official Mass and wanted the priests to celebrate facing the congregation throughout.
'Deacons will be ordained'
“We will not allow either Puthur nor the new curia members to enter into any Church or archdiocesan institutions within the archdiocese,” says Riju Kanjookaran, the spokesperson of Archdiocesan Movement for Transparency (AMT), a body of priests, religious and lay people that spearheaded the three-year-long protest to retain their traditional Mass.
Police continue to guard the Major Archbishop’s House, the seat of power of Major Archbishop Raphael Thattil, the head of the Church.
The Church is one of the 23 Eastern rites in full communion with Rome and the second-largest after the Ukrainian Church.
Puthur, in an Oct. 9 circular, said the police presence at the Archbishop’s House would continue for its “effective functioning.”
The ordination of the deacons has been pending over the liturgy row for a year now.
The simmering dispute over liturgy was revived in 2021 when the Synod of Bishops, the apex decision-making body of the Church, ordered all dioceses to adopt the Synod-approved Mass from November 2021.
Barring the Ernakulum-Angamaly archdiocese, others complied with the order. The priests and Catholics in the archdiocese led violent protests that saw police cases, hunger strikes, and the burning of effigies of Church leaders.
The issue was amicably settled in July 2024, and the deacons' ordination was fixed in October of this year. However, Puthur insisted on a written undertaking to celebrate the uniform mode of Mass.
Syro-Malabar Church spokesperson Father Antony Vadakkekara said the deacons will be "ordained once they give a written undertaking of obedience as is the case of other deacons in other dioceses."
If Catholics do not allow them to celebrate the official Mass, "the authorities will make arrangements for them to celebrate Mass, and they need not worry about it," he said.