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Church split over punishing promiscuous priest

D Jose in Thiruvananthapuram

The sexual scandal involving a priest in the Changanacherry archdiocese in Kerala has taken a curious turn with a section in the church deciding to pursue the case in the courts and another demanding the resignation of the Archbishop Mar Joseph Powathil.

While the Liturgical Action Committee has sought Powathil's resignation for the degradation of the diocese during his term, the Kottayam-based Centre for Development Action has decided to file a case in the Kerala high court. The CDA, at a seminar held on Saturday, has set up an action committee to fight the case even without any complaint from the victim's side.

Advocate K J John informed the CDA that there was ample scope for pursuing the case on the strength of the documents received by the church tribunal, which heard the case under the canon laws. The documents of the church tribunal are authentic and signed by the presiding judge, the collegiate judges and the notary. This makes it easy for the action council to file a case before the high court, the advocate said.

John said that the real issue thrown up by the case is whether anyone can operate outside the confines of the Constitution and the Indian legal system. The tribunal of the Changanacherry archdiocese, which found the priest Cyriac Karthikapally guilty of violating a minor girl, had settled the case by ordering the removal of the priest from the pastoral ministry and "remuneration" to the victim.

The seminar was of the unanimous view that the church tribunal has not done justice to the girl and the child born out of wedlock, which would have to grow up as an orphan even when its parents are alive. The speakers at the seminar felt that the criminal offender should not be allowed to escape under the cover of a church tribunal verdict. They said that the tribunal's decision to remove the priest from the pastoral ministry and permit him to celebrate mass privately could not be termed as an appropriate punishment for the grave crime he had committed. They felt that the tribunal should have explored the possibility of forcing the priest-turned-layman to marry the girl.

"The total lack of concern shown by the church authorities for the sentiments and interests of the victim has to be viewed seriously," said Sebastian Vattamattom, president of the CDA. Similarly, Joseph Pulikkunnel, director of Indian Institute of Christian Studies, claimed that the canon laws cited by the tribunal in settling the case were not applicable to St Thomas Christians. "These laws are applicable to only the Alexandrian, Armenian, Antiochian and Constantinople churches," he added.

The tribunal had found that the priest had started having sexual relations with the girl when she was 15 years old and continued until she became pregnant in 1998. The priest had tried to get her to undergo an abortion. The girl, who refused this, delivered a female child on September 15,1998.

The seminar made it clear that the move by the CDA was not against the church but the existence of religious courts within the Indian legal system. The validity of the religious courts cannot but be questioned since it has stepped into the realm of cases of a criminal nature, the seminar said.

Meanwhile, the Liturgical Action Committee, which held a separate meeting at Changanacherry, has decided to submit a memorandum to the Archbishop seeking his resignation owning moral responsibility for the incident. LAC leader Prof. T J Mathai said that the Archbishop should have referred the case to the judiciary when he received a complaint from the victim and her father.

The LAC has also been at loggerheads with Mar Powathil for his attempt to restore the Chaldean (East Syrian) rituals and mode of administration in the church despite the Vatican's assertion that the Syro-Malabar church could not be viewed as a sister church of the Chaldean church. Interestingly, the LAC, which has been agitating for liturgical and administrative reforms for the past several years, won a crucial battle when the synod of bishops decided to change the mass format.

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