Syro-Malankara Catholics welcome their head as cardinal

October 26, 2012 - Some half a million faithful of the eastern rite Syro-Malankara Catholic Church across the globe have been celebrating the announcement of their head as cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI. During his weekly general audience in the Vatican on Wednesday, the Holy Father announced six new cardinals for the Catholic Church, including Major Archbishop Baselios Mar Cleemis Thottunkal of Trivandrum, in southern India’s Kerala state. When the Holy Father will confer the cardinalship on the six at a ceremony called the consistory in the Vatican on November 24, Archbishop Cleemis will become the Syro-Malankara Church’s first ever cardinal and the youngest among the cardinals worldwide. The 53-year-old cardinal-designate is currently in Rome attending the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization. He is the fifth person from Kerala to become a cardinal. Following the Pope’s announcement in Rome, Archbishop Thomas Mar Coorilos of Thiruvalla made the announcement at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Pattom, Thiruvananthapuram, in Kerala, the headquarters of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. Celebrations by the clergy and the laity were marked with prayer sessions, the ringing of church bells and some firecrackers. Kerala state chief minister Oommen Chandy, called Cardinal-designate Cleemis in Rome on the phone to congratulate him. He said the elevation of Archbishop Cleemis was an honor not only for Kerala but for India too. A Syro-Malankara official said they are making elaborate arrangements to welcome their head when he returns to India on October 31 from Rome.
Born in Mallappally in Kerala on June 15, 1959, Cardinal-designate Cleemis was ordained a priest in 1986 and later served for a number of years as a parish priest in Bathery diocese. He later obtained a doctorate in ecumenical theology from Rome’s Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas. In 2001, he was appointed apostolic visitor for North America and auxiliary bishop of Trivandrum Archdiocese. In 2003 he was appointed the Bishop of Tiruvalla, of which he became the archbishop in 2006 when it was raised to the rank of archdiocese. The Syro-Malankara Synod elected him as the head of the Church in February, 2007, which Pope Benedict approved.