Cardinal pronounces Kerala priest 'Blessed'
May 07, 2006
About 60,000 people gathered on April 30 in a village in the southern India's Kerala state for the beatification of a priest who died 32 years ago.
(UCA News, May 01, 2006) About 60,000 people gathered on April 30 in a village in the southern India's Kerala state for the beatification of a priest who died 32 years ago.
Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil, head of the Syro-Malabar Church, led the ceremony that declared Father Augustine Thevarparampil blessed. Pope Benedict XVI deputed Cardinal Vithayathil, who heads this Oriental-rite Catholic Church as its major archbishop, to conduct the ceremony.
The Redemptorist cardinal read out the beatification proclamation first in Latin and then in Malayalam, the language of Kerala. Church bells tolled and firecrackers exploded as a choir sang the new blessed's name.
The priest, popularly known as Kunjachan (little priest) because of his short stature, worked and died in Ramapuram village, Kerala, where St. Augustine Parish of Palai diocese is based. He is the sixth Indian and Kerala's fourth to be beatified, a step below sainthood.
His beatification, however, was the first of the six led by a cardinal. Pope John Paul beatified Sister Alphonsa and Father Kuriakose Elias in 1986 when he visited Kerala. The late pope also beatified Mother Mariam Thresia in 2000 and Blessed Mother Teresa in 2003, both at the Vatican. Blessed Joseph Vaz was beatified in Sri Lanka, where he worked and died. Pope John Paul visited the island nation in 1997 to conduct that beatification.
Bishop Joseph Kallarangat of Palai told UCA News that 50 bishops, 500 priests and 8,000 nuns attended the four-hour beatification rites for Father Thevarparampil in the village parish of the revered priest. Ramapuram is 60 kilometers east of Kochi, a city 2,595 kilometers south of New Delhi
Cardinal Vithayathil said Blessed Thevarparampil's "exemplary life should inspire us. That is what God expects from us." He also said the blessed priest worked for dalit, low-caste people at the bottom of India's tiered caste system, trying to improve their lives socially, economically and spiritually.
The cardinal recalled that in leading a simple life, the priest considered these people once called "untouchables" as his "sons and daughters ... baptized them, educated them and lifted them up from the gutters."
In a letter sent to Cardinal Vithayathil, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's secretary of state, asked the Indian prelate to conduct the beatification at Ramapuram in the name of Pope Benedict.
While Pope John Paul II personally conducted beatification ceremonies in his time, Pope Benedict has been deputing cardinals to lead the rites in his name. He has, however, conducted canonization ceremonies that declare new saints.
Blessed Thevarparampil was a popular figure even before his elevation. His tomb in the village parish has already become a pilgrim center for people from all over Kerala and much of India.
Born in 1891, he became a Palai diocesan priest in 1921 and lived most of his priestly life as an assistant pastor in his native Ramapuram parish. He died on Oct. 16, 1973, and the Church has declared Oct. 16 his feast day.
Archbishop Pedro Lopez Quintana, apostolic nuncio to India, and Cardinal Telesphore Toppo of Ranchi, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India, attended the beatification.
Father Kurian Mathoth, vice postulator of Blessed Thevarparampil's cause for sainthood, told UCA News that the beatification was "a joyous occasion for all of us." Father Mathoth, who said he personally knew the blessed, said, "We were all waiting for this day."
Father Mathoth said documents submitted to the Vatican include evidence of the miraculous cure of Gilson Varghese, now 25, born with a clubfoot. Just before the beatification began, Varghese told UCA News his cure was "God's will, and I've just become a tool ... My prayers were answered and I got a new lease on life. If I had not been cured, my life would have ended in despair."
Varghese said his parents were too poor to afford the three operations doctors suggested to correct his deformed leg. Instead, he prayed to the saintly Father Thevarparampil and visited his tomb in 1991. He and his parents continued to pray, and one day he woke up with his foot cured.
Father Mathoth said his team carried out "a detailed inquiry" into the case with the help of medical specialists. "It was indeed a miracle," he said. Varghese now works in a computer firm.
Cardinal pronounces Kerala priest 'Blessed'