New Syro-Malabar head assumes leadership, pleads for unity

(May 30, 2011) The new head of the Syro-Malabar Church has urged India’s three Catholic rites to forget their past rivalries and work anew for unity. “We might have competed with each other and done things in the past that were not proper because of our differences of opinion. Let us forget them and look ahead with hope,” Major Archbishop George Alencherry said at a ceremony on Sunday to install him as the third major archbishop of the larger of India’s two Catholic Oriental rites. He made the same appeal to his own Church people who are divided because of liturgical and administrative disputes. “God is willing to forgive our past mistakes and sins. Let us accept God’s mercy,” the major archbishop told all bishops from his Church as well as bishops of Latin and Syro-Malankara Churches in India who had gathered at the Holy Mass that took place in St. Marys Cathedral Basilica in Ernakulam, Kerala state, the seat of the major archbishop. ‘We have nothing to fear because God is with us. Let us look forward and work together for the welfare of our people and society,” he said. He said he has chosen as his motto “service in dialogue of truth and love” to give a new thrust to the efforts of Church unity.