B’luru Court directs Archbishop to have Konkani Masses

Mangalore Today News Network

Bengaluru, June 23, 2016: Archbishop of Bangalore has been directed to have in all Catholic parishes Masses in Konkani language, giving a new perspective nd padigm to the three-decade old language controversy in the southern archdiocese.

The Bangalore Additional City Civil and Sessions court’s judgment has asked Archbishop Bernard Moras to direct “all Roman Catholic Churches of Bangalore and the priests heading the Churches to permit/allow Masses in Konkani language.”

The judgment comes on a 2014 civil suit, filed by Dolfy D’Cunha, president of the  FKCA, Federation of Konkani Catholic Associations and its General Secretary Arun Fernandez. They sought the court’s direction to have masses in Konkani language, apart from other languages.

They argued the city archdiocese has some 800,000 Catholics, comprising people speaking Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Konkani and English and some 300,000 of them are Konkani speaking people.

Although more than 33 percent Catholics in the city speak Konkani they are denied the privilege of offering masses in their own mother tongue in the city parishes while masses are conducted in English, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam, they reasoned.

The judgment, some say, is bound to have effects in many other dioceses of Karnataka, especially in Chikkamagalur, Mysuru and Shimoga where Konkani Catholics are a sizeable population.

Catholic dioceses in Karnataka have been the focus of ongoing language strife, mainly between local Kannada-speaking Catholics and migrant Tamil-speaking Catholics from neighbouring Tamil Nadu.

The third group, Konkani-speaking Catholics mainly originating from the Mangalore region of the state, complain they are marginalised as a non-local community, even though they have long resided in Karnataka state. Konkani is the official language of Mangaluru diocese.

Some estimates say more than 50 percent of the Bangalore Catholics are Tamils and only 20 percent are Kannada, while the rest are from other language groups.

The Kannada-speaking people have been demanding – sometimes violently – that more of their community be appointed as bishops or given high positions with greater decision-making authority within seminaries or other key institutions.

The court order favouring the Konkani Catholics comes amid Kannadiga accusations that Tamil and Konkani speaking people and their language dominate the liturgy and administration of the Church.