Let us rip apart the legacy of the Archdiocese of Ernakulam and its leaders…

Wimal Mary Das, Freelance Reporter

The land scandal is the tip of the iceberg, and the obscure games of power and authority take their nasty and vicious turn as the KPMG International financial firm explores the veracity of conspiracy behind the land deal fraud under the leadership of Cardinal Alencherry.

Archbishop Joseph Powathil,

“ Let us rip apart the legacy of the Archdiocese of Ernakulam" . This is not a mere musing while having a tea break in the ecclesiastical meetings of the lobby group against the Archdiocese of Ernakulam, but it has been the ideological and social engineering strategy of a particular group of bishops and priests, systematically operated for many decades with the blessings of the top official's of Oriental Congregation of Rome with current administration of Syro Malabar Church. It also exposes the hidden hands behind the process of social engineering strategy to rip apart the legacy of the Archdiocese of Ernakulam. The land scandal is the tip of the iceberg, and the obscure games of power and authority take their nasty and vicious turn as the KPMG International financial firm explores the veracity of conspiracy behind the land deal fraud under the leadership of Cardinal Alencherry. Roman authorities requested the report from an international firm on the matter as the irregularities in the land deal under the leadership of Cardinal surfaced to the public. The KPMG report found the flagrant violations of Canon law and the Indian secular law and subsequently exposed the misappropriation of wealth for Cardinal’s favor. It was a premeditated act as a part of social engineering strategy to destroy the legacy and goodwill of the Archdiocese.

Know the history of this social engineering against the Archdiocese of Ernakulam and its leadership and legacy.

It began in the late 1960s…

The Archdiocese of Ernakulam stood for renewal in all aspects of Church life aftermath of the Second Vatican Council. The Church leaders insisted on the paramount importance of listening to the "People of God" under the leadership of Late Cardinal Parecattil. They stood for the renewal in pastoral approaches. They stood for transparency and interreligious relationship in the social fabric of the society. They stood for peace and harmony among faithful and other religious groups. However, unfortunately, the obsessive orientalist group and its lobby group found these values as stumbling blocks against their concocted vested interest and its ideologies to restore the policy of Oriental rite and Chaldean rituals. Therefore, native bishops unanimously resisted ( seven bishops at that time) the imposing attitudes of Oriental congregation. In order to implement the strategies of imposing rituals, a social engineering strategy was adopted by Roman authorities. The below excerpts brings evidence in this regard.

"…This matter ( resistance from native bishops against imposing Chaldean Liturgy ) was communicated with certain members of the previous committee seeking their opinions, and one among them was a Church historian of India E.R Hambye. He was working in West Bengal, India for a long time, and his directives proposing the strategies to impose Chaldean Liturgy by hook and crook really augmented further logistical challenges of the liturgy project in the next decade ..."

Some of the racial and derogatory comments communicated to the Oriental Congregation by E.R. Hambye will raise anyone's eyebrows. Without any prejudice to his personal life and his commitments to Indian Church History, the scoffing comments of E.R. Hambye must be ​evaluated ​for its nuances. He states "We readily admit that those persons​(​ native bishops) are unchangeable and that no historical or liturgical argument will ever change their false persuasion towards Latinization". He continues "There is​ ( are)​ no other means than leaving the old to die in peace and to prescribe the reform to young people who are not ill prejudiced". His pessimism echoes in these words "we will not discuss with Archbishop of Ernakulam…" "convinced the uselessness of a commission on Malabar" which refers to the plea of native bishops to appoint a commission to study the matter. Another bargain points he raised to subdue to their overwhelming autocracy, "... express our desire that the use of Malayalam be granted only if the Chaldean rite is introduced" It has to be underscored that, Archbishop Kand​a​thil wrote his response against imposing the Chaldean Liturgy upon Syro Malabar Church six months before his death ( he died on January 10 1956) and these insinuated ​ contemptuous remarks from E.R. Hamby "let us wait until the old to die" was the perfect example of arrogance and autocratic attitude hell-bent on imposing Chaldean Liturgy upon Syro Malabar Church. It was tantamount to ideological imperialism from a Western mindset. Moreover, within the six months after the death of Archbishop K​andathil, the diocese of Cheganassery had​ been raised to the status of Arch​i​eparchy on July 26, 1956, by Pope Pius XII, and Kottayam and Pala became its suffragan dioceses. There is nothing against elevating another diocese to Archdiocese but the backdrop to do it immediately after the death of Archbishop of Kandathil alludes many nuances of the autocracy of Oriental Congregation. An objective observer can review this part of the story with the following words: Without acceding to the cry of the native bishops against the imposition of the Chaldean Liturgy, the Roman authorities imposed this dictatorial attitude. There was no other option before native bishops other than yielding to 'imposing strategies' of Oriental Congregation. The efforts of native bishops to oppose it with their enduring efforts, did not bring any positive outcome in this regard.​

In 1984 Archbishop Parecattil resigned and Archbishop Padiyara was transferred to Ernakulum, where Archbishop Powathil took charge as the archbishop of Cheganassery in 1984. ….

The process of social engineering began to worsen, neutralizing the leadership in the Archdiocese of Ernakulam. After the death of Cardinal Parecattil, the Archdiocese of Ernakulam had only its callous leaders, and they were puppets in the hands of vested interests. They always earmarked for their promotion in the ecclesiastical ladder and personal glorification, sacrificing the legacy of the Archdiocese. Archdiocese paid the price heavily, and land-scandal is the tip of the iceberg of a venomous bite of this social engineering of systemic destruction of the Archdiocese of Ernakulam and its legacy. Thus it becomes a fight for truth and justice, no more time to spare any further.

Struggles with ideological engineering against the Archdiocese of Ernakulam and its leaders

The expression of ideological engineering is used as the cross-session of social engineering. Social engineering underscores the discreet activities to win over certain political ideologies and election process in connection with fascist political groups. Social engineering is a concept in political parlance that refers to efforts to influence popular attitudes and social behaviors on a large scale of people usually perpetrated by governments and private groups. This process involves crafting policies and implicit implementation of same. This could be carried out through intentional interpolations by key people in the administration and projects by the virtue of authoritarian institutions. Social engineering succeeded to form certain social attitudes as it was orchestrated by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Also, famous philosopher Karl Popper speaks about historicism as opposed to a free society. Social engineering is a theory and process by which a 'determined set of results' (determinate end) are achieved. Karl popper argued that this form of social engineering and principal theoretical presupposition reinforces authoritarianism and totalitarianism. Also, it is important to note the concept of ideological engineering by an American Philosopher Edward Bernays who wrote in his book propaganda( 1928) 'in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by a relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the mas​s. ​It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind. They are called lobby groups in common parlance. He defines his thoughts "if we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it. The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible at least up a certain point and with certain limits" He called this process "scientific technique of opinion molding as the engineering of consent" by which he means a certain group of people form a certain ideology and ideas discreetly engineer their mindset to support those ideas and programs.

Syro Malabar Synod session

This process of social engineering can be predominantly characterized during the consultation and further guidance of E.R.Hambay and he narrated the historical situations of the ​S​yro Malabar Church and proposed a long-term strategy of social engineering that was well reflected in his alluding commends at the behest of the death of Archbishop Kandathil​.​ ​ We can recall his command "​​Let us wait for his death" and soon after the death of Archbishop Kandathil within months, the diocese of Changanassery was elevated to Archdiocese. It ​is ​an ​explicit example ​ of social engineering prepared a landscape that certain ideology could flourish to overtake. The sudden demise of bishops ​Mar. Sebastian Makuzhikary (June 11, 1994) and Abraham Kattumana(April 04, 1995), who ​were illustrious leaders of progressive minds and ​enlightened ​ thoughts ​ created intellectual vacuum to uphold the values of Archdiocese of Ernakulam ​. Moreover, the conscious omission of intellectual leaders of the progressive group ​ from the mainstream Church leadership ​augmented the domination of the Chaldean restoration group pulling the Church backward.

Thomas Elavanal, an obsessive orientalist.

After the sudden death of Mar. Abraham Kattumana, the election of all bishops from 1996 were engineered purposefully imposing the Chaldean rituals in Syro Malabar Church. It was quintessential for ideological engineering. Between 1996 and 2017, 46 bishops were selected and 39 of them are obsessive orientalists pulling the Church backward, only 7 of them are standing for the liturgy reforms pioneered by Cardinal Parecattil. The passionate Chaldean ideologies began to influence the decision-making process​ in the Synod. The dictatorship of Chaldean ideology and its domination still continues in different ways employing different manipulations. There were many canonical recourses done by the faithful, but they did not fetch any positive results. This desperate state of the overarching ideology of social engineering takes its destructive ramifications in the land scandal and its clamoring activities . All investigative agencies affirm this truth.