Sweet Raphael Struggling with the Bitter Pill

Archbishop Raphael is known to me for the past many years – he comes to us in simplicity, humour, Thrissur style and humility. My attempts to reach out to him since Dec. 5 have not been successful. Perhaps, even at that time, he was in the process of being installed as the Major Archbishop - otherwise, it was unlike him not to respond.

Being not a regular church-goer 😀(with the abundance of priests around in the Devil's own Country, having very little option but to stick to the ashramam for my daily eucharistic celebration), usually, I am not having the burden to stomach what comes through these letters - good or bad, controversial or inspirational. 

This time, one of my revered friends asked us in the group for responses, which prompted me to jot this down.  It is just free-thinking sans any animosity, though it may appear to have some. 

My impressions on reading his first pastoral letter:

It appears reconciliatory and unifying.

It has touched upon the core of Christian life – the following of Christ.

The stress on simplicity and accessibility of Christian fellowships and institutions is timely and highly relevant.

The stress on unity and the Holy Father as a rallying point is also relevant.

I feel unhappy that he, like almost all other church leaders appears blissfully oblivious of the Christian obligation towards life on the planet, and Christian lifestyle in this regard, notwithstanding Laudato Si and Laudato Deum (2023) of the very same ‘Holy Father’ whom he banks on for ‘uniformity based unity’.  Typical of the Church leaders, especially of the Zero Christian bishops of Keralam, who have nothing more than liturgy to grind, happy to throw away incarnational theology or eco-theology, provided the eucharistic theology of their brand is intact.

The references made regarding children, youth, the unorganized sector, the farmers, those afflicted by human-wildlife conflict, those in small-scale business, the need for promoting 'religious tolerance' etc. indicate a thought for inclusion, which is laudable.  However, he could have given some thought to the women of the Church who are almost 50% or above in the Church, (who are usually the faithful, obedient, subordinate and subservient lot, the unquestioning lambs) when the basic decisions are generally made solely by men (of cloth).

And when it comes to the ‘unified liturgy’, it appears that Raphael is not able to grow as Christ – who was first of all, almost totally against all sorts of rituals that tended to be an ism. He did make use of symbols - e.g., his bapstism in the Jordan, which was not falling into the category of a typical ritual. Whether it was helping the humans and promoting goodness  - within and among humans – was his core concern.  Here Raphael appears faltering and tends to be in the anti-Christ (referring to the times of Christ) pharisaic group, who tended to be pujaris of rituals, and precisely on account of His opposition to that, Jesus was hunted down (Jn 5:16).

While he points out the complementarity of traditions (hopefully, and not traditionalism!! – but he says, paramparyavaadam) and of modernity (modern thinking?), finally he is kind of forced to stick to traditionalism, which is again imposed on the basis of ‘obedience’ (vidheyatwam - subordination – thus imposed doesn’t sound very Christian on the part of the authority, whereas it fits well for the Christian as such) to the Holy Father.

This very Holy Father really appears partisan and obscurantist when it comes to this ritual(ism), whereas otherwise, he appears ultra-modern – christianly tolerating anything and everything except the uniform celebration of Syro Malabar Liturgy; the number of ‘variants’ given to the Latin rite adherents is quite comfortable for him, though, many of them are very modern. 

Fortunate to be saved from the perils of the Chaldean Obnoxdoxy for the past few years serving institutions in Latin rite regions, but still determined (by Grace) to be 'obedient', 

vidheyan

Prashant CMI

P.S. Raphael appears in the Bible in the deuterocanonical book of Tobit - basically as a guide and healer.  I hope these functions are fulfilled through our Archbishop.   Raphael would do well to go slow on the insistence, listen to people, not merely impose Liturgiology, but use Sociology as well to learn how this adds to the common good and promotion of goodness within and among the adherents of the one who saw his business as to go about doing good (Acts 10:38).