Bangalore: The language divide has been festering in the Bangalore Archdiocese for the last forty years.
The divide is the result of the influx of Christians form other states and locations into Bangalore as it grew. It’s time it was resolved, and hopefully it will be, when the Senate of the Arch diocese meets on the 17th of this month. The meeting of the Senate body of the Bangalore Archdiocese had been convened thrice in the recent past to solve the language issue but the meetings of January 10, March 3 and April 9 could not arrive at any concrete solution.
The FKCA – the federation of Konkani Catholic Associations based in Bangalore, has issued a press release calling on the on all Konkani speaking Catholics to take part in a survey of Konkani speaking Catholic families on their website www.fkca.net
There are a large number of Konkani speaking catholic families in Bangalore, who along with the FKCA have been demanding Konkani liturgical services since many years and this survey is a tool to collect relevant information in this regard that can be presented in support of their demand to the Senate when it meets on the 17th to arrive at final solution on the issue.
The Archbishop of Bangalore Dr Bernard Moras, has in the latest circular of the Archdiocese No. 120 for the month of June 2014, pointed out that a 10-member committee of priests from the Senate was appointed ”to propose ways and means to sort out the language issue that has been troubling the Archdiocese from the last 40 years.”
The 10-member committee with Fr Xavier Manavanth, Director of Sanyasa and former Provincial of the Claretian Missionaries in Bangalore, as the Moderator, appointed by the Bangalore Archdiocesan Senate was given a 5-point criteria to find a solution that takes care of the concerns of the people belonging to the faithful belonging to different languages in the Archdiocese.
The 5-point criteria is, as follows:
1. Liturgical guidelines given by the Church in its Documents;
2. Cosmopolitan and Multi-cultural scenarios of the Archdiocese;
3. Language profile of our faithful in the Archdiocese;
4. Pastoral responsibilities of the priests towards the faithful; and
5. Promotion of language, culture, tradition to deepen people’s faith and to give impetus to evangelization and pastoral care in the Archdiocese.
If the Senate of Priests and the College of Consultors recommend the guidelines as mentioned in the latest official circular issued by the Archdiocese, Kannada will continue to remain as the principal language of the Archdiocese and enjoy prime slot in the Mass Timings as well as in Liturgical Celebrations. However, along with Kannada, the major languages of Tamil and English, that formed part of the three-language formula adopted during the tenure of former Archbishop Dr Alphonse Mathias, other languages such as Telugu, Malayalam and even Konkani will find a place.
It is quite likely that any final solution to the language row in the Archdiocese of Bangalore may have its repercussions in other parts of the State, especially in Dioceses like Chikmagalur, Mysore and Shimoga as the Konkani speaking people in these dioceses have also been demanding Konkani Liturgical services for a number of years.
