Dear Katolik,
I am not calling Catholic Evangelization meddling.
The evangelization was marvelous, the unity of the church was beautiful, what happened afterward was criminal. What I am saying is the schism had ended and the intolerance began.
Further, just because I am a Catholic that’s no reason to deny what really happened, if I did that I would only be kidding myself. The parties who were involved know what happened, why should we go into denial? We can learn from this!
The Portuguese bishops with their heavy hands began to abuse this Apostolic, very ancient church in southern India. By turns they began to methodically destroy each tradition of the Catholics of Kerala, to replace them with Roman traditions and Roman disciplines.
I just want to help you get a sense of what happened, we cannot change history. Since most modern Roman Catholics know first hand the trauma that occured in the West with the institution of the “Novus” Ordo (we read the after effects every day on this board), I think it should be easy to relate to the reaction of these people to much greater changes forced upon them from outside by foreigners, this with the support and encouragement of Rome.
The church managed to alienate the entire population.
The situation was so bad that the Portuguese completely lost control and the Saint Thomas Christians sent outside of the Catholic church for new bishops (some of whom were murdered by the Portuguese).
Finally, in a reversal Rome intervened and asked Italian Carmelites (not Portuguese) to go to India and try to salvage the situation with promises not to interfere in the native church traditions, about 2/3 of the parishes were recovered. The process of interference began again later at a more gingerly pace.
The point is at first the entire church was in union with Rome, Catholic with a unique rite, and the church hierarchy was not satisfied to allow them their own customs and traditions. The very same thing has happened everywhere Eastern churches joined with Rome. Promises were made, then broken.
So I hope you see that my comments about meddling had nothing to do with evangelization, it had to do with a triumphal attitude coming from Roman officials responsible for these people.
For further clarification Rome is now encouraging the Catholics of Kerala to restore their ancient traditions, 400 years later.
+T+
Hesychios:
