An apostolic administrator’s mission impossible
One of the hardest jobs in the Church has to be leader of India’s Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly.
In the Catholic Church, there are three jobs no one in their right mind would seek out. The first is pope, the second is Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the third is apostolic administrator of India’s Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly.
When the 76-year-old Bishop Bosco Puthur retired as leader of Australia’s Syro-Malabar community in January 2023, he might have looked forward to spending more time on the golf course. But Pope Francis appointed him apostolic administrator of Ernakulam-Angamaly archeparchy before the year was over.
The archeparchy is the most populous of the 35 dioceses of the Syro-Malabar Church, the largest of the 23 Eastern Catholic Churches after the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The archeparchy, based in the southern Indian state of Kerala, is also the see of the major archbishop, or head, of the Syro-Malabar Church.
Puthur’s predecessor as apostolic administrator, Archbishop Andrews Thazhath, lasted barely a year. During his brief tenure, Thazhath was blocked from entering the archeparchy’s cathedral, boycotted by priests, and saw his decrees burned outside of churches.
Puthur’s term has proven no easier. On the plus side, he helped to secure a fragile truce over the introduction of a new Syro-Malabar liturgy in July. He also resolved an impasse over the ordination of eight deacons as priests.
On the downside, Puthur sparked a protest march after he launched a radical overhaul of the archeparchy’s curia in October. And he caused uproar earlier this month when he suspended a priest accused of criticizing a senior cleric at a celebration of the Holy Qurbana, the Syro-Malabar Church’s Eucharistic liturgy.
Indian media are now reporting that the situation in the archeparchy has deteriorated further, after Puthur removed four priests from their posts following their refusal to implement the new liturgy in their parishes.
How did relations between Puthur and local clergy sink to this point? And what’s likely to happen next?
‘Not ideal’
In September, Indian Catholics shared images of what appeared to be a letter from Bishop Puthur to Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, the prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Eastern Churches, which oversees relations between the Holy See and the Syro-Malabar Church.
Puthur is said to have read out parts of the letter — also addressed to the papal delegate to Ernakulam-Angamaly, Archbishop Cyril Vasil’, S.J. — at a meeting with priests.
The Pillar was unable to confirm the letter’s authenticity with 100% certainty. But if it was genuine — as seems probable — it offered an interesting insight into the apostolic administrator’s relationship with the Roman authorities.
Puthur reminded Gugerotti and Vasil’ that the Synod of Bishops — the Syro-Malabar Church’s supreme authority — had agreed to a compromise on the introduction of the new uniform liturgy in the Ernakulam-Angamaly archeparchy, where it has faced sustained mass resistance.
In the new uniform mode, the priest faces the people during the Liturgy of the Word, turns toward the altar (ad orientem) for the Liturgy of the Eucharist, and then faces the people again after Communion.
Most priests and lay people in the Ernakulam-Angamaly archeparchy have refused to adopt the new liturgy, arguing that priests should be allowed to continue celebrating the liturgy facing the people throughout (versus populum), believing it is more in line with the reforms following Vatican Council II.
Puthur wrote that the synod had “decided to give, as a concession for the time being, the permission to celebrate at least one Holy Qurbana in the uniform mode in all churches on all Sundays and the days of obligation.”
The agreement, Puthur said, marked the start of the new liturgy’s implementation phase in the archeparchy, without alienating the vast majority of local priests and lay people who oppose the change.
While the bishop conceded this was not “the ideal mode” of implementing the new liturgy, it would at least accustom local Catholics to the change and prepare the path for full implementation.
Puthur offered a rather defensive account of his efforts to ensure that all parishes were following the terms of the truce.
“I do admit that the way the special provision was implemented was not ideal,” he wrote. “But, given the situation, I am hopeful that we can build up from here in a realistic and pastoral manner.”
The “realistic and pastoral” approach to the crisis would, however, include “initiating canonical action against those who persist in disobedience.” Puthur promised the cardinal and archbishop that he would pursue the matter diligently.
The letter — assuming it was genuine — suggested the apostolic administrator was caught in an uncomfortable position, between Rome on the one side, expecting rapid implementation of the new liturgy, and the people of Ernakulam-Angamaly on the other, poised to resist any attempts to impose change.
The letter also contained a contradiction that has plagued attempts to resolve the crisis. Puthur advocated a “realistic and pastoral” path forward, while also promising to impose severe penalties on clergy guaranteed to bring the archeparchy once again to boiling point.
The pope, the Vatican, and the Syro-Malabar Synod of Bishops have also wavered between accepting the reality of implacable opposition to the new liturgy and attempting to drive changes through with ever more strongly worded appeals to authority.
In the months since the letter leaked, Puthur seems to have veered off the “realistic and pastoral” path and onto a disciplinary track.
In a Dec. 17 letter to Fr. Thomas Valookaran, vicar of St. Martin De Porres Church in Palarivattom, the bishop denounced the priest’s “non-compliance” with “binding ecclesiastical orders” concerning the liturgy.
“I am the moderator, promoter, and guardian of the entire liturgical life of the archeparchy entrusted to me, according to canon 199 §1 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches (CCEO),” he wrote.
He explained that “by virtue of the authority vested in me as the apostolic administrator of the Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly, and in accordance with canon law, you are hereby prohibited from celebrating Holy Qurbana or officiating any sacraments or ecclesiastical functions in St. Martin De Porres Parish, Palarivattom, and in all its institutions/chapels, with immediate effect.”
The reaction to Puthur’s move against Valookaran and three other priests was predictable. The Archdiocesan Protection Committee, which represents clergy opposed to the new liturgy, accused the bishop in a Dec. 18 statement of “blowing canon laws and civil laws to the wind.”
“Mar Bosco and the curia are trying to break the peaceful atmosphere in the archeparchy’s parishes during Christmas days of peace and joy,” the committee said.
The group noted that parish councils had given their full backing to the priests receiving letters from Bosco.
“The legal advice received by the priests who received the threatening letter is to remain in the churches where they are currently ministering, as Mar Bosco’s orders do not have temporal validity,” it said.
The committee underlined that it would not cooperate with Puthur following his “dictatorial decisions.”
After almost a year as apostolic administrator, Bishop Puthur finds himself in the same unenviable position as his predecessor.
Like Archbishop Thazhath, he is facing a boycott among the clergy of Ernakulam-Angamaly. His circular letters are also being used for kindling by groups of angry laymen. Now aged 78, the bishop could not be blamed for looking for an exit.
Addicted to administrators?
The Ernakulam-Angamaly archeparchy has had a succession of apostolic administrators since 2018, when priests rose up over a financial scandal known locally as the “land deal scam.”
Cardinal George Alencherry, then head of the archeparchy, stepped back temporarily while maintaining his innocence of any wrongdoing. Responsibility for day-to-day governance fell to the apostolic administrator Bishop Jacob Manathodath.
Manathodath was succeeded in 2019 by Archbishop Antony Kariyil, who was liked by local clergy but seemingly forced out by the Vatican in 2022. Then came Thazhath, followed by Puthur.
Puthur was appointed when Pope Francis accepted Cardinal Alencherry’s resignation as Major Archbishop of Ernakulam-Angamaly. Puthur was named apostolic administrator sede vacante et ad nutum Sanctae Sedis (“the see being vacant and at the disposition of the Holy See.”) Yet the see stopped being vacant in January, when the pope confirmed the election of a new Major Archbishop, Raphael Thattil.
Since his election, Thattill has spent much time on the road, with trips to the U.K., the Vatican for the synod on synodality, and the Arabian Peninsula. He has commented only sparingly on the liturgy dispute, seemingly not wanting to be drawn too deeply into it.
But if there is a new major archbishop, why does the Ernakulam-Angamaly archeparchy still need an apostolic administrator?
No doubt there is plenty of administration to be done in a diocese with more than half a million Catholics. And Thattil needs time to visit growing Syro-Malabar communities around the world.
But is there a danger that the Vatican and the Syro-Malabar Church’s leadership are too reliant on apostolic administrators, attempting to keep the dispute at arm’s length when they should be taking a more active role in seeking to resolve it?
It’s surely unreasonable to expect an apostolic administrator, who is by nature temporary, to end a disagreement that has roiled the Syro-Malabar Church for decades.
Pressing an administrator to make ever harsher threats does not address the deeper issue beneath the liturgical dispute, which is the broken trust between priests and bishops following the financial scandal.
Restoring shattered trust is hard, delicate work, even within a Church that preaches reconciliation and forgiveness. It requires that leaders meet face-to-face with their disgruntled flocks, rather than outsourcing that task to intermediaries.
Ironically, the rebellious clergy and laity who believe that they are defending a position taught by the Second Vatican Council are very much in error. There is not a hint in the sixteen documents of Vatican II that the priest should be facing the people at Mass. The Eastward Position, priest and people facing East, the direction of the rising sun, as a symbol of awaiting the Second Coming, is one of our most venerable, ancient traditions. Instead of forcing this sliver of a ritual church to make a change they do not seem to understand, how about a liturgical catechesis of the universal Church, including the Roman Rite, on the Eastward Position as the correct posture for the Holy Sacrifice?
In Chicago a priest was suspended (until he relented) by Pope Francis-favorite Cardinal Cupich for celebrating Mass (regular English language Mass) ad orientem and it would be ironic if a Syro-Malabar priest was suspended in Chicago for celebrating Mass versus populum (the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church has a diocese headquartered in a Chicago suburb). It seems not to really be about what priests do during Mass, but that they remain completely obedient to the dictates of Pope Francis and the bishops he likes. I think the priests in Ernakulum-Angamaly are wrong, but it is strange that Pope Francis would punish priests for not wanting to celebrate Mass ad orientem, since Pope Francis would never celebrate Mass that way and would probably suspend any Latin rite priest or bishop that did that in his presence.