Pastoral care of the emigrants of the
Syro-Malabar Church has always been the priority of the
Commission. Some of the members of the Commission in the
past were appointed Apostolic Visitors of the USA and
Canada as well as the European countries. They presented
reports of their visitations to the Synod as well as to
Rome. The Commission arranged several meetings and
deliberations with the Latin prelates of the migrant
areas and sent various memoranda to Rome as well as to
other ecclesiastical authorities. As a result of these
efforts, St Thomas Syro-Malabar Diocese of Chicago was
erected for the Syro-Malabar migrants in USA and Canada,
chaplains were appointed for the pastoral care of the
Syro-Malabar migrants by the Latin prelates in many
places and several Syro-Malabar parishes were
established in Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata.
Commission ensures regular correspondence with the
emigrant communities
The Commission was entrusted with the
task of arranging the conduct of the first Syro Malabar
Mission Assembly. Accordingly a preliminary meeting was
held in November 1998 at Poornodaya in Bhopal with
delegates from all dioceses, especially from mission
dioceses for drafting the first Working Paper (Lineamenta).
The Mission Assembly was held from November 12 14, 1999
at Mount St Thomas. As per the direction of the Synod,
held from November 14 20, 1999, the Commission convened
a Meeting of the Bishops of the Dioceses of the Syro
Malabar Church outside the Territorium Proprium and the
major Superiors of the Syro Malabar Religious
Congregations and Institutes of Apostolic Life, working
in the above Dioceses at Poornodaya in Bhopal from 13 to
15 October, 2000.
An all-inclusive Syro-Malabar
Catholic Directory was published by the Commission for
the first time in November 2004. The Commission joyfully
undertook the preparation of a Mission Policy of the
Syro-Malabar Church in the challenging circumstances of
the Mission of the Church in the third millennium. After
several years of study, consultation, discussion and
preparation it was finally promulgated on March 19,
2006. It was simultaneously translated into Malayalam as
well. The Commission conducted the first ever Global
Meet of the Syro-Malabar emigrants at Mount St Thomas,
the Major Archiepiscopal Curia from 18 to 21 of August
2006 after a year long preparation. Almost 380
participants from all over the world participated in the
Meet and of them some 100 were from outside India and
others from various cities and Syro-Malabar dioceses in
India. The Commission brought out a Directory of the
Syro-Malabar Migrants, with a brief history, general
statistics, contact details and other relevant pieces of
information of every sizeable Syro-Malabar migrant
community in India and outside. The Commission also
published two issues of the Mission India. Around the
time of Christmas in 2006 Syro-Malabar Global Mission
was published for the emigrants of the Syro-Malabar
Church as per the suggestions of the Global Meet 2006.
Together with Sathyadeepam the Commission (CEPCM)
brought out a Mission Supplement as a special issue in
order to introduce the Syro-Malabar Mission Dioceses to
the Mother Church in Kerala. The Supplement contained
articles and pictures on all the Mission dioceses of the
Syro-Malabar Church and it was a landmark achievement
for the Commission. A study seminar on the Mission
Policy of the Syro-Malabar Church under the title
Mission Congress 2007 is being planned out by the
Commission. The Commission intends to publish a shorter
version of the Directory of the Syro-Malabar Church in
2008.
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