Indian Catholic devotees pray as deacons bless them at the shrine of Our Lady of Health in Hyderabad on September 8, 2019. (Photo: AFP)
A southern Indian state's top court has dismissed an appeal by a Catholic bishop challenging the jurisdiction of a civil court on Catholic religious matters.
The Karnataka High Court, while turning down the appeal by Bishop Anthony Swamy of Chikmangalur, ruled that a civil court can take up Catholic religious matters, and observed that Canon Law, which the prelate said he is empowered to deal with, has no statutory powers in India.
The court was hearing a petition by four Catholics from Chikmangalur diocese in Karnataka to have at least one Mass on Sundays and other feast days in their local Konkani language, an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Konkan region along India’s western coast.
“It is true the High Court has dismissed our appeal. We will have to study the order in detail before deciding a future course of action,” said V. T. Thomas, a lawyer for the diocese.
“The High Court has only asserted the right of a civil court to deal with Catholic religious matters and it has not made any reference to the dispute in question,” he told UCA News on June 6.
"When it comes to the legality of Canon Law, the life of every Catholic is governed by it for all practical purposes, " he noted.
Among the 42 parishes in the diocese, the dispute is centered around only three churches, including the cathedral.
The majority of the faithful in St. Joseph Cathedral Church, Christ the King Church, Jyoti Nagar, and Holy Family Church, Vijayapura, are Konkani-speaking.
The language row started in 2006 when the then bishop, John Baptist Sequeira, asked parishes to follow the state’s official Kannada language for liturgical purposes, including Eucharistic Mass.
However, over the years, parishes adopted other languages, including Konkani. More than 65 percent of some 40,000 Catholics in Chikmangalur, speak Konkani, just as most others in the southwestern part of Karnataka.
“We had requested Bishop Swamy to permit us to have at least one Mass on Sundays and other feast days in our native language — Konkani — but he is not ready,” said Steven Lobo, one of the four petitioners.
“When the bishop turned down our formal request, we filed a case in 2017 in a trial court in Chikmangalur, Lobo told UCA News on June 6.
The court dismissed their plea, agreeing with the contention of the bishop that a civil court has no powers to take up faith-based matters of a Catholic, which come under Canon Law.
Subsequently, an appeal was filed with the chief judicial magistrate's court, which in March 2020 reversed the trial court order, asserting that the civil court has jurisdiction to hear Catholic religious matters.
The diocese, led by Swamy, appealed against this order in the top court in the state, which dismissed the appeal on May 26.
“We will soon file a fresh application before the bishop with a copy of the high court order to accept our demand,” Lobo asserted.
“I don’t understand why the bishop is so adamant when other parishes are having Mass in Konkani,” said Stanley D’Silva, a Catholic layman.
A diocesan official, who did not want to be named, said the diocese was not interested in fighting against its people and has no plan to appeal against the order of the Karnataka High Court.
“Going for an appeal against the High Court order may not be feasible as other parishes are already having Mass in Konkani. Secondly, it is too expensive and not worth fighting against the people in the current circumstances in the country,” he said.
Swamy told UCA News on June 7, "I will decide about the future course of action after consulting my legal team."
“We are not interested in any litigation. We only want the bishop to permit us to have one Konkani Mass every Sunday and other feast days. We do not want to disturb anyone,” Lobo said.
Share your comments