Kerala church comes out strongly against interfaith marriages

After instituting incentives to encourage couples to have more children, the Catholic Church in Kerala has initiated a process to regulate interfaith marriages in order to arrest the steady decline in their population.

By T.k. Devasia

Published: Mon 23 Jun 2014, 11:42 PM

Last updated: Sat 4 Apr 2015, 1:27 AM

The Trichur Diocese of the Syro-Malabar Church, one of the three Catholic rites, has set up a committee under Auxiliary Bishop Mar Raphel Thattil to evolve an action plan to prevent the faithful from marrying members of other religions.

A spokesman of the diocese said that the panel will hold discussions with the heads of other Christian sects to prepare for joint action. The bishop will also discuss the issue with Pope Francis, who considers Christian marriage a real ‘vocation’ just like priesthood.

The committee would be looking for ways to sensitise the parents and children on the need to confine the marriage to the same faith and strengthen religious teaching to deepen the faith. All the Catholic rites have made catechism pass certificate mandatory for solemnising marriage in the churches.

The move was initiated after a survey found that interfaith marriages were on the rise among the members of the community in the diocese. The survey revealed that on an average 200 people were marrying spouses from other faiths. After such marriages they stop involving in church activities.

The practice is found more among women, who mostly follow the faith of their husbands after the marriage. This has been adding to the decline of the Catholic population as a result of decreasing birth rate and higher out migration.

The church has been trying to arrest the trend by encouraging families to have more children after studies warned that Syrian Christians, who constitute nearly half of the state’s six million Christian population might even face a ‘Parsi syndrome’ if the present declining trend continued in the next few decades.

A study by K.C. Zachariah of the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum, revealed that the Syrian Christians was heading towards a zero or even negative population growth regime. The birth rate in the community has already fallen below the replacement rate. The birth rate today stands at an all-time low of 1.7 children per couple.

The steep decline in natural increase is due to relatively higher acceptance of family planning methods. This has led to a rapid rise in the population of the elderly and the steady decline in the number of children.

The children had earlier constituted 40 per cent and elderly less than per cent of the population. The children now constitute 25 per cent and the elderly 10 per cent. The CDS projects a rise in the numbers of the elderly to 25 per cent by the end of the first quarter of the present century.

Following this, the church has been encouraging couple to have more children. Several parishes have started offering cash incentives and reservations in admissions in educational institutions run by the church for the additional children.

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