Dear followers of Jesus Christ

You all must be proud and happy that with the declaration of a joint Pastoral letter from Archbishop Most Rev.  Anil Cuoto and Bishop of the Eprachy of Faridabad,Most Rev. Kuriakose Bharanikulangara, the Capital city of Delhi and the north of India are blessed with one more autonomous  church. According to them, it is the fulfilment of a long cherished desire from the laity of the church for the preservation of faith and love for Jesus and strengthening of the unity of the Catholic Church. At a time when the church is facing persecutions of different hues, we need to unite. 

The more the churches, more bishops and clergy, the better is the unity and love. We have realistic experience of this unity and love of Christ from the churches in Kerala.  We need to congratulate all those lay people from the north of India (If there is really any) who have appealed to the Catholic Hierarchy to strengthen the faith and the church by bringing one more church to this Capital City. My appeal now is that every catholic has a duty to strengthen our faith, love for Jesus and unity of the Catholic Church. So we need to bring in as many autonomous churches as possible to the capital city. If needed, we must create more autonomous churches. The rituals of services of the some catholic churches in the central part of Kerala especially (changanacherry and Palai) are different from the new Eparchy. Then there is Bethany group.  These two groups are not represented by the presence of Bishops. 

More the bishops, more the faith and more of Jesus. They too must appeal to the catholic hierarchy to give them also shepherds for them in the capital. I understand that there is still another group of Catholics in Kottayam the Kannaya church. The people from that diocese also need a shepherd here. Why any catholic in this Capital city of Delhi should be left to the mercy of another church.  Unity will be stronger when we have plenty of shepherds and diversity of chruches.  Let us rejoice for the first step taken. Once more congratulations to everyone who have taken the initiative to bring the Catholics of Delhi together. Let us pray for more and more shepherds to strengthen our church. Some new ideas.  Why not we have a Bishop each for tribal Catholics, for the dalit Catholics, for the Goan Catholics, for Mangolorean Catholics, for Anglo-Indian Catholics  and for North East Catholics. 

The more the bishops, the merrier the Catholic Church, more diversity and more unity and love. We can even build a Bishop’s Enclave in the capital similar to the Deplomatic Enclave so that they can start loving each other and show the laity the unity and love in Jesus.

Jose Paul (Delhi)