This is a letter send to Holy See officials in 2021 February, by the priests of Ernakulam – Angamaly requesting Pope Francis and Oriental Congregation to intervene

  • to establish justice and regain the moral integrity of the Syro Malabar Church.
  • To correct the non-synodal ways of Syro Malabar bishops’ Synod.

This letter will give you full story of Land scam of Cardinal Alencherry.

The sad thing is that even after two years the situation is worse. All the requests of the priests remain unanswered in great Catholic and synodal Church.

 Your Eminence,

Greetings of love from the Archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly! We do appreciate your commitment and earnestness in taking serious steps in solving the issues related to the Land Scam in the Archdiocese and to bring an atmosphere of reconciliation and peace.

As you know, Ernakulam – Angamaly Major Archdiocese, the See of the Major Archiepiscopal Church of Ernakulum- Angamaly (Syro Malabar Church) has been undergoing through a severe moral and leadership crisis for the last three years.

We, the priests of the Archdiocese along with the laity have taken different initiatives and also cooperated with the authorities to bring reconciliation and solve the issues forever. These issues were born out of the unlawful and unethical sale of the Archdiocesan property which caused huge financial loss to the Archdiocese and moral degradation to the Major Archbishop, Cardinal Alencherry and also for the church at large. It is also evident that there were blatant violation of the canon laws and the civil laws with regard to financial transactions and buying and selling of the property.

1. The first step taken by one of the members of the Collage of Consultors was to ask a simple question in the meeting held on 2017th April 4th. The question was whether the Archdiocese is planning to buy a property outside the territory of the Archdiocese. Cardinal and the Finance Officer said there is no plan to buy any property. But on the third day to it, the Cardinal signed final deal of 25 acres of land outside the territory of the Archdiocese.

2. Later in a priestly gathering held on September 19-20th and 26-27th in 2017, the priests raised the question before the Cardinal that whether we bought land at Kottapady (in the territory of Kothamangalam Eparchy) for a hospital project. Unfortunately Cardinal bluntly denied it and said that further details will be given by the Finance Officer and he left the meeting.

3. Since the Finance Officer’s explanation was not clear, a few priests on their own went in search of truth with the help of the Government offices and through the “Right to Information Act”(An Indian law that avails official documents to the applicant), and collected the copy of the  documents  of the land deals. To their surprise, they realized that many other plots of land of the Archdiocese had been sold with the help of an Agent causing lots of financial loss to the Archdiocese. Even then things were kept within the confines of the church authorities.

4. The priests have thought it is better to approach the Cardinal himself with the documents and evidences and thus 22 priests, representing different Forane districts of the Archdiocese, met Cardinal Alencherry on November 6th, 2017. They requested him to look seriously into the matter as he is also directly involved along with the finance officer and close the issues before it comes to the public attention.

5. He agreed that all the money supposed to be remitted to the Archdiocese will be paid to the Archdiocesan account before 30th of November, 2017. Seeing much nontransparent elements in the land deals the priests along with the Finance council requested Cardinal to appoint a commission of lay experts to study the irregularities of the account of the Archdiocese. And he appointed a commission.

6. Mr. C.M. Joseph, one of the members of the Commission, submitted an interim report on November 29th in the Presbyteral Council, revealing that saying that there occurred some mal-practices in the above said financial transactions. Therefore the members of the Presbyteral Council requested Cardinal Alencherry to appoint a larger committee to study the issue in detail. And thus he appointed a committee consisting of three priests from the Presbyteral Council and three lay persons who are experts in different fields, headed by Fr. Benny Maramaparambil.

7. Benny Maramaparambil committee submitted the report in the presbyteral council held on 15th December, 2017. The meeting was presided by Bishop Sebastian Adayanthrath, Protosyncellus since the Cardinal was hospitalized due to health reasons. The report clearly revealed the financial mal-practices happened in the land dealings headed by the Cardinal and violations of the canon and civil laws were very evident. The huge financial loss happened to the Archdiocese have been unearthed in the report. More than financial loss this has brought a moral degradation through the breach of trust done by the head of the Church. In this situation the presbyteral council requested the Protosyncellus to call for a Presbyterium to discuss the issue. He agreed to do so in consultation with the Cardinal.

8. Till this day nothing of this scandal was known to the public or to the media. But on 16th December, 2017, it is known that a priest from the eparchy of Kanjirappilly posted writing in the Face book from a fake ID, abusing the priests of the Archdiocese of Ernakulam - Angamaly and alluding that we have mentally tortured Cardinal and he is in the hospital and his life is in danger. This was the first public post with regard to the Land Scam in the Archdiocese in the social media.

9. Soon the main stream media took up the issue and made their own enquiries and it was evident to the public that Cardinal Alencherry was clearly involved in the Land scam along with other persons.

10. With the permission of the Archbishop, Cardinal Alencherry, the presbyterium was convened by the Protosyncellus and the issues were discussed and all the priests expressed their wish to solve the issue in the spirit of Christian brotherhood. Both the finance officer and one syncellus who was also associated with the land scam admitted that there happened some mistakes but did not reveal the details of the land scam to the effect of solving it.

11. As the presbyterium suggested Presbyteral Council was to be convened on 4th January, 2018 to present the final report of Maramparambil committee. All the council members were present for the meeting, nevertheless Cardinal Alenchery did not turn up for the meeting which was called up by the himself, giving some evidentially untrue reasons and thus the issue still remained unsolved.

12. In the January session of the Synod of the Syro Malabar Bishops, the issue was discussed and seven member Bishops’ Commission came to meet the priests in the Archdiocese during the Synod. We had raised our concerns and our desire to solve the issue. And they have submitted a report to the Synodal Fathers based on their study and analysis. But this report was rejected by the synod headed by Cardinal Alenchery and all the related papers were collected back from the bishops in order to burn it to ashes. Thus seven member Bishops’ Commission was failed to solve the issue.

13. Since it was already a hot issue in the Media, the day before the Palm Sunday 2018 a reconciliatory meeting was held in the Secretariat of the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council in the presence Archbishop Soosai Pakyam, senior most bishop of Latin Church in Kerala, Major Archbishop Cleemis, head of the Malankara Catholic Church, other Archbishops of the Syro Malabar Church, the curia members of the Archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly and few priests from the Archdiocese. In the meeting Cardinal Alencherry neither revealed the details of the land deals nor took up the responsibility but agreed to file charge against middle men of the land deals.

14. But on the next day, during the Mass at the Cathedral on Good Friday in another parish church  KCBC’s move to solve issue was sabotaged by Cardinal himself declaring himself as innocent and indirectly tarnished  priests branding them as rebels. He or his supporters have a group of people in the social media to target the priests with abusive language.

15. Realizing the seriousness of the situation the Synod had asked Cardinal to stay away from the Archdiocese for a few months and Bishop Adayanthrath and Bishop Jose Puthenveetil were given charge to run the Archdiocese. But the people (basically from outside the Archdiocese) supporting Cardinal Alencherry were creating unnecessary problems in certain parishes and giving trouble to the Auxiliary Bishops.

16. Since our attempts to resolve the issue did not succeed we had sent appeals to Your Congregation addressing the Holy Father to intervene and regain the lost moral voice of the Archdiocese. The unethical way of Cardinal and his associates in the Land scam has alarmed us more than anything else.

17. At this juncture, Holy Father had appointed Bishop Jacob Manathodath as the Apostolic Administrator to resolve the issue and bring reconciliation in the Archdiocese. At the instruction of the Oriental Congregation Apostolic Administrator, Mar Jacob Manothodath appointed an Independent Commission which took help of internationally reputed KPMG firm for financial and ethical auditing. Its report was partially presented in the Synod but never revealed the content to the public. Still the synod hesitated to take any further step on the report of the commission.

18. To our surprise we came to know that al of a sudden Bishop Jacob Manathodath was removed from the post of the Apostolic Administrator and our auxiliary Bishops Sebastian Adayanthrath and Jose Puthenveettil were overthrown from the archbishop’s house and from their office and at night Cardinal Alencherry stepped into the Archbishop’s House with police force. It was so painful for the priests and the laity as well. In reaction to this priests started a fasting prayer in archbishops house to raise the moral; ethos of the priests and laity.

19.  As a result of the fasting prayer, nine senior priests of the Archdiocese (Dr. Hormis Mynatty, presently Syncellus, Dr. Antony Nariculam, presently Minor seminary Rector, Dr. Paul Chittinappilly, presently Archdiocesan Educational Agency Manager, Dr. Kuriakose Mundadan, Dr. Joyce Kaithakottil…) were called in for discussions with the Archbishops and Bishops representing the Synod. To our surprise a few among the bishops (mainly Archbishop Andrews Thazhath) were justifying the Cardinal with no substantial reason and he claimed that all the night operation of his Cardinals entry to Archbishops house was planned by him. We felt ashamed of our bishops’ unethical arguments and adopted ways to deal a question of justice.  .

20. We understand that in the light of the Inchody Commission Report Rome has written to Cardinal Alencherry and the members of the Permanent Synod to make the restitution of the financial loss to the Archdiocese.  It is also in the light of Your instruction, we believe, the Synod has taken a decision to make provision for the Metropolitan Vicar of Major Archbishop as the person who would run the day-to-day affairs of the Archdiocese.

21. The Permanent Synod has asked Archbishop Kariyil, the Metropolitan Vicar to take steps for the restitution. In order to make the restitution possible, he also appointed another committee to prepare the modalities for the restitution and they have prepared a draft after having consulted different canonical bodies of the Archdiocese. It is signed by 12 persons representing different canonical bodies and submitted to Mar Antony Kariyil and he has in turn presented the proposals to the members of the Permanent Synod.

22. But again it seems that the Permanent Synod is not ready to accept the proposals. The priests and faithful lost hope that Syro Malabar synod will establish justice and regain the moral integrity of the Church in front of the secular society of Kerala and India.

23. Therefore we again appeal to the Holy Father and Oriental Congregation to intervene and take radical steps to resolve the issue forever. We the priests in the archdiocese face pastoral issues in the parishes in connection with the scandal of the Church leadership and their failure and conscious attempt to cover the injustice and moral failures.

24. The one and the only solution to solve the Land Scam in the Archdiocese is to publish the most trusted report of the Inchody Commission and the KPMG findings on the Land Scam. Let the truth be known to all and let the people related with it accept the truth. We strongly believe that only truth will set us free. The principle of transparency up holded by Pope Francis and the publication of the MaCrrick report give us hope that Rome will take necessary steps to heal the wounds of the Syro Malabar Church.

25. What we understand from the sharing of the bishops is that there is no synodality in the Syro Malabar Synod. A small group of bishops with Cardinal are hijacking the deliberations of the synod. Senior bishops are silenced when they try to raise voice against the moral degradation in the Church. We have no hope in the Synodal interventions to establish peace and justice in the Syro Malabar Church and especially in our Archdiocese. Therefore, we earnestly request Your Holiness and the Oriental Congregation to intervene and find a lasting solution to the Land scam in the Archdiocese publishing the Inchody Commission Report and the KPMG Findings.

Signed by

The Priests of the Archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly

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After sending this letter in February 2021 to Vatican dicastery, Pope Francis’ letter with ‘error of facts’ come to Syro Malabar Church in July 2021 and that letter ignites a new liturgical war in Syro Malabar Church. Which again revealed the failure of synodality in the Church. Even after two and half years, neither Vatican nor Syro Malabar Bishops are ready to take the responsibility of their faults and solve both issues, the land scam and banning of Holy Mass Facing the People in Syro Malabar Church.

You should know that:

Truth is fundamental and essential to any unity.

Peace without Justice is both unsustainable and fragile.

Let us work together to witness Truth and to establish Justice in Church.

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