Is Mar Angadiyath and His Supporters Religious Terrorists and Anti-Catholic?

By Tom Varkey, Parishioner of St. Alphonsa Church, Coppell, TX, USA

 Based on the Word of God and what the supporters of the Mar Thoma Cross do to promote their idolatrous Mar Thoma Cross, the answer is a whopping ‘yes’. Well, what is it that terrorists do that make them terrorists?

For one thing, they have absolutely no regard for the feelings of others nor for their basic human rights. In the case of the Alphonsa Catholic Church, even though 90% of the parishioners wanted the Crucifix in their church, the Chicago Bishop Mar Jacob Angadiath and his handful of supporters stubbornly insisted on placing only the Mar Thoma Cross in the church sanctuary. When the parishioners and Fr. Sajy would not go along, the Bishop fired Fr. Sajy sending him back to India and then froze the bank account of the church. This kind of callous disregard for the rights and feelings of others is typical of terrorist behavior.

 

What else do they do which is characteristic of terrorist behavior? They sometimes display utterly contemptuous and sacrilegious behavior even for the most sacred things of God to the point of totally desecrating even the bread and wine used for the Holy Mass. I am sure even though it did not get much publicity, some of you may be aware of what a bunch of supporters of the Mar Thoma Cross did a few years ago to a bishop in Kerala (one of the supporters of the Crucifix) as he was getting ready for saying the Mass. I am sure murder was in their mind. But fortunately, the Savior on the Crucifix for which he stood for saved him from death so that he could tell his story to others like you and me. If this is not terrorism what else is?

How are the supporters of the Mar Thoma Cross anti-Catholic? In a Catholic church, there is nothing more Catholic than the Crucifix. Yet the supporters of the Mar Thoma Cross want it to be taken down so that they can install their Mar Thoma Cross which is nothing but an anti-Biblical man-made symbol in its place. If that were not enough, they want to hang a veil to cover the Crucifix even when they occasionally, unwillingly though, agree to place the Crucifix side by side with the Mar Thoma Cross when they are not able to overcome the pressure from parishioners. How much more anti-Catholic than that can they be? That too in spite of the fact that in January 2010, the Pope had strongly recommended displaying the Crucifix in the central location of the sanctuary during the Holy Mass (published in the Website newliturgicalmovement.org). The Pope wants this to be done so that the Crucifix can be venerated as the symbol of our salvation which Jesus earned for us by His dying on the cross.

 

Therefore, it is quite evident from the above facts that the supporters of the Mar Thoma Cross are not only religious terrorists but also anti-Catholic because they do not want to obey the Pope and want the most Catholic thing in a Catholic church -- the Crucifix to be removed from the church. Ironically, now-a-days, all the priests who preach at St. Alphonsa Catholic Church in their homilies and retreat sermons preach to the congregation telling them how they should listen to their authorities even though they themselves are totally unwilling to obey the Pope! Not only that they themselves will not obey the Pope, but they will not allow the faithful to obey the Pope either!

In Jude 19, we read that those who bring division in the church are those who do not have the Holy Spirit. We also read in Rom. 8:9: “Those who do not have the Spirit of Christ do not belong to Christ.” If this is so, it is not rocket science to figure out who they belong to if they do not belong to Christ. No wonder the Chicago Bishop and the supporters of the Mar Thoma Cross work day and night to bring down the true Cross of Jesus Christ so that they can replace it with their idolatrous Mar Thoma Cross in its place. There is no doubt that these forces work for Satan and that they are both religious terrorists as well as anti-Catholic. It hurts me a lot in saying this because as a personal friend, Bishop Angadiath is close to my heart and I do cherish a lot of sweet memories from the past when he was Fr. Jacob at St. Thomas The Apostle Catholic Church in Garland, TX. But this is the truth and I have to say it because I want to be identified with truth because to me it is a matter of my eternal salvation.

Another clear-cut evidence is the fear and confusion and pain that the supporters of the Mar Thoma Cross have caused for the rest of the Syro Malabar Catholics and the rest of the entire Catholic Church over the past 30 years or so. No doubt, this has been very much like the fear and confusion and pain that the Islamic fundamentalists cause to the Western countries as well as to their own fellow Moslems within the Arab countries. Looking at the chaotic scene across the Syro Malabar Church landscape, I am reminded of the grieving heart of God through the Prophet Jeremiah expressed in Lamentations 4:1: “How the gold has lost its luster, the fine gold become dull! The sacred gems are scattered at the head of every street.” How sad that the Syro Malabar Catholics who are called to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth have become a disgrace to God’s Holy Name and a nagging pain to the weeping heart of God by becoming religious terrorists! Let us pray for our brothers and sisters who have gone astray even as we fight to hold on to the precious Crucifix which is the symbol of our salvation!