Actually this is a response from my part to many of the comments posted in this blog about my congratulatory article written on Thottanani’s article. Both the articles were published in ‘Sneha Sandesam’. But the blog administrator published only my congratulatory article in this blog. I have no objection to that. If you want to read Thottanani’s article please CLICK HERE. I hope that the administrator will publish this article too. As we are aware, this blog is a forum for sincere discussions and thereby we enrich ourselves.
I thought that Thottanani’s article was balanced and founded on reason. It actually went along with my experiences in the US for the last 40 years. In this regard it doesn’t matter whether you are a Knanaya or not. We are all immigrants to this great nation without any merit from our part. You may say that “I have a Doctorate in certain discipline.” But there are thousands of people who are more qualified than you in the same field in this world. But they may not be living in the US. Some humility is needed in this regard.
The immigrants should come to terms with the realities of life in the US. If the ‘great Malayalam culture’ is that great why did the ‘Anonymous’ immigrate to the US? You could have stayed in Kerala and have great Malayalam culture, Malayalam Mass, endogamy, etc. It actually reminds me an incident happened in 1980 at my house. There was a party at my house after the Baptism of my son. There were only three Malayalee families (that is all the Malayalee families I know at that time) and about 25 white American families whom I work with. At the end of the party, one of the Malayalees who used to be a lecturer in Kolkata recently immigrated to the US with his wife and two daughters started talking to an elderly lady who works for the federal government at that time. This guy was criticizing America left and right saying that the educational system in America is poor, American culture and morality is a shame, people are ignorant about world affairs, etc., etc. He couldn’t find anything good in America. And he said that he is going to send his daughters to Delhi for their schooling. The lady whom he was talking to already visited India three times. She was even the delegate of the US Presbyterian Church to present the monetary donation to Christian College in Chennai. During the Second World War she was putting rivets under the wings of the airplane for $1.00 per hour. This guy is complaining to that lady about America! This was the reply of that lady. “You know Thomas? Every day Air India is flying from New York to New Delhi. If you don’t like America why can’t you go back to India and have a happy life there”. He was here in the US only for a few months at that time. His daughters are engineer and medical doctor now and both married to white guys. Recently we were talking about that incident and he confessed that he was wrong. At least he had the graciousness to admit his mistake.
What is this great Malayalam culture the ‘Anonymous’ is talking about? I like to get some explanation about that culture. For me, hypocrisy is Kerala culture; corruption is Kerala culture; laziness is Kerala culture; make money by any means is Kerala culture; indulge in alcohol is Kerala culture; buying favors from saints is Kerala culture; slave mentality is Kerala culture. According to the information, in 2010 there were over 300,000 abortions in Kerala, the so called ‘God’s own country’. What a shame! Don’t forget that abortion is illegal in Kerala and over 35% of the population is Christians.
Why we, the Knanaya people, buy Churches in America? Regardless of Southist or Northist we are all Syro Malabar Catholics. We have the same patrimony, church discipline, canon law, theology, spirituality, Liturgy, etc. I understand that we are a separate ethnic group. So we can have Knanaya gatherings many times a year and even can buy community hall for such purposes, but not the church building. We can have liturgical gatherings together with the other Syro Malabar Parish (parishes) in the city. Still we can practice endogamy if we choose to. It was like that in most cities before the Syro Malabar diocese established in Chicago. Bishop Angadiath appointed two Vicar Generals and acted exactly like Vicar apostolic Charles Levinge, S. J. of Kottayam Vicariate who appointed two Vicar Generals, Frs. Mathew Makil and Nidhirickal Manikathanar to divide the Northist and Southist. Remember that we were practicing endogamy all along even before establishing our own Kottayam diocese. If we spend money to buy a church, bishop will own the property. If we buy a community hall, we will own the property. That is the difference. After spending thousands of hard earned dollars to buy and to maintain a church and support a priest, if our children marry a non knanaya our priests won’t allow that marriage ceremony at the knanaya church. The simple logic as well as common sense reveals to us that buying knanaya church in America is an absurdity to say the least. Priests are pushing to buy the church for the diocese and for themselves not for the knanaya families. Why we waste our money? We should have the guts to say ‘no’ to these vultures.
I have knanaya emotions too. But I also think reasonably. We have thousands and thousands of catholic churches in America. Make use of them for our spiritual needs. If we want to socialize go to the community gatherings. Church is a place for worship not for ethnic gatherings. We should learn to distinguish ethnicity and religious worship. Let me conclude by saying that we don’t need knanaya church to worship and to practice endogamy. It is that simple.
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