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Catholic World News News Feature

Syro-Malabar Church granted autonomy in naming bishops January 07, 2004

The Vatican has given the Synod of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church the right to choose bishops for the Eastern-rite Church.

The Syro-Malabar Church is among the largest Eastern Catholic groups, with about 4 million members, heavily concentrated in southern India. In recent years the Church has produced an enormous number of vocations to priestly and religious life.

In the sui juris (self-governing) Eastern churches that are in full communion with the Holy See, new bishops are appointed by the Synod of the particular Church. The single exception to that rule-- which is laid out in the Code of Canon Law for the Eastern Churches-- had been the Syro-Malabar Church. The Vatican had clung to the authority to appoint bishops directly for the Syro-Malabar Church, out of fear that the sharp divisions within the Eastern-rite group, primarily over liturgical issues, would be exacerbated by the process of making episcopal appointments.

The Syro-Malabar Church boasts a direct line of apostolic succession from St. Thomas the apostle, who brought the Christian faith to India. After breaking away from Rome during the disputes that followed the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the Syro-Malabar Church returned to communion with the Holy See under the influence of European missionaries in India. In 1923 the Vatican officially recognized the Syro-Malabar hierarchy, and in 1993 gave the Eastern Church sui juris status-- except in the matter of making episcopal appointments Apparently satisfied that the Syro-Malabar bishops will be able to overcome their differences, the Vatican made this final concession this week. Patriarch Ignace Moussa Daoud, the prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Eastern Churches, announced the policy change on January 7, during a meeting of the Indian Catholic bishops' conference. The Indian bishops are meeting in Thrissur, in the southern Kerala state, under the aegis of the Syro-Malabar archdiocese there.