NEW DELHI (CWNews.com)

    The difference of opinion on liturgical unity in the 3.3 million member Syro Malabar Church (SMC) based in southern Kerala state came to the fore on Monday, the feast day of St. Thomas the Apostle who founded the Church in India.

    While the Synod of the autonomous church had resolved last November to go back to the earlier practice of saying the Holy Mass facing the altar -- instead of the people -- on St. Thomas Day -- a day of obligation in the oriental church, several dioceses of the SMC decided not to switch over to the "old practice" at the last minute.

    As deadline for the switchover to the old system drew closer, the heads of five of 14 SMC dioceses in Kerala including Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese under Major Archbishop Varkey Vithayathil -- head of the autonomous church -- allowed the priests to continue saying the Holy Mass facing the faithful to avoid dissent and protests.

    A senior SMC Synod official said that these bishops had no option but to reject the earlier Synod decision on liturgical uniformity that was forced on them by the influential group of bishops who had already enforced in their dioceses the practice of saying the Mass with the priest with his back to the faithful.

    The Nazrani Catholic Priests Conference -- a forum of Catholic priests in the SMC -- said that 2,000 out of 2,500 priests in the SMC's 14 dioceses in Kerala had agreed to boycott the new mode of Mass during a petition the forum held in June.

    One of the most vibrant churches in the Catholic communion with one religious vocation for every 50 Catholics, the SMC has been divided for years over the liturgical patrimony of the church. While the influential lobby, with great influence in the Vatican, lobbies for restoration in toto of the East Syrian Liturgy that the Church had followed for centuries, the other group favors inculturation and modification of the liturgy to present conditions (like saying the Holy Mass facing the faithful). Several commissions, including one appointed by the Pope, tried to work out a solution to the dispute that has kept the bishops in two camps, but a consensus still evades the Church.

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