Churches or cultural clubs? Why a pagan festival like Onam is celebrated in churches, that too, cancelling catechism for children?

 Are Syro-Malabar Catholic churches slowly turning into cultural clubs? Cultural programmes, competitions, sports days and vulgar display of wealth in feast celebrations have become the order of the day. The festival of Onam -- a Hindu pagan festival in Kerala state of India -- was celebrated this year with more fanfare and flourish than the Hindu brothers. There was no qualm on the part parishes -- as done by a parish in Navi Mumbai – about dropping catechism on Sundays and celebrating Onam festival with film songs and dance numbers, followed by a sumptuous vegetarian lunch for the parishioners. 

 Aren’t we diluting our faith when we celebrate the return of a mythological Hindu king? This is now happening in many of Syro-Malabar parishes. It happened in many churches in Mumbai. All said and done, Onam has nothing to do with Bible or Jesus Christ. But churches are competing to celebrate Onam in all splendor and opulence. And someone dresses up as King Mahabali and goes around church premises, followed by Onam songs and dances which shouldn’t happen in church premises.

 We see an ostentatious preoccupation for such meetings, programmes and dinners and for the Church's prestige, but without any concern that the Gospel has a real impact on God's faithful people and the concrete needs of the present time.

 Objecting to the practice of church celebrating Onam, Rev Fr James Manjackal said, “Church must have nothing to do with Onam. As a festival, there is nothing wrong in having a vegetarian meal with them, or have sports and games with them or some entertainment on that day with Hindus. But it’s nonsense to celebrate it in the church.”

 “I too hear about the compromises in Kerala Church and I pray that the priests will have the right sense to be authentic in their practice of religious faith! I remember when we were small, we used to go to Hindu houses for Onam (we were surrounded by them in our village) and eat "upperi, payasam" and sometimes used to eat a vegetarian lunch with them but we were forbidden by our parents even to look at the "Athakalam" with flowers. That was our faith,” Rev Fr Manjackal said.

 Churches are losing their focus. Now there is purely spiritual worldliness lurking behind a fascination with social and cultural gain, or pride in their (believers) ability to manage such cultural programmes. My personal opinion is that it’s like going to the level of a cultural club or a social institution. This is all done through controlling the believers using the institutional set-up. If you question such practices, you’re ostracised and kept aside.

  While the clergy is not largely responsible for this worldly fascination, they're moving along with tide. While in parishes, it’s the laity which takes the lead in conducting such programmes, clergy succumbs to pressure. There’re priests who take King Mahabali inside the churches and take selfies. And very often, the fixation of believers to run for social programmes in churches originates from a concern to be seen, in a social life full of appearances, meetings, lunches, dinners and receptions. Often clergy is forced to accept and approve such insidious worldliness propounded by closed and elite laity groups. To borrow the words of Pope Francis, they all have the same pretence of “taking over the space of the Church”.

 These laity groups raise funds for music, dance, shamiana and lavish spread of food without any murmur or protest. They spend hours and days to practise the dance numbers to be performed at such social occasions. Ironically, these groups are nowhere to be seen when a charismatic retreat or a prayer meeting or adoration is conducted in the church. The priest runs from pillar to post to get people and money for spiritual programmes. Where's Jesus?

 The organizers of cultural programmes may have 200 reasons to justify their cultural extravaganza in place of catechism and Holy Mass on a Sunday. My personal opinion is that they are replacing religious fervour by the empty pleasure of self-indulgence and hedonism. In the name of culture and tradition, song and dance numbers were belted out. 

 Are Christian supposed to teach children about this culture? The principal beneficiary of such cultural programmes is not God’s people but the institutionalised church. On the other hand, Syro-Malabar churches and congregations are busy building new hospitals, buildings, colleges, medical colleges, engineering colleges and others,   

 Pope Francis once said, “the mark of Christ, incarnate, crucified and risen, is not present” during such programmes.” As he says, closed and elite groups are formed, and no effort is made to go forth and seek out those who are distant or the immense multitudes which thirst for Christ. Moreover, expectations and hopes of children are given a different orientation, leading to the loss of spiritual fervour. Instead of opening the door to God’s grace, we exhaust our energies in arranging cultural programmes, receptions and lunches.

 I think we can consider such tendencies as “manifestations of an anthropocentric immanentism” so forcefully expressed by Pope Francis. The church, as Pope says, shows a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism, whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyses and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying.

 There’s no wonder when the same church organises a charismatic retreat or a prayer meeting or adoration, only a handful of people turn up.

 “In this way, the life of the Church turns into a museum piece or something which is the property of a select few,” Pope Francis said in ‘Evangelii Gaudium’. “If something should rightly disturb us and trouble our consciences, it is the fact that so many of our brothers and sisters are living without the strength, light and consolation born of friendship with Jesus Christ, without a community of faith to support them, without meaning and a goal in life,” it says.