40th day: Memories of H.G. Augen Mar Dionysius

40th Day: Memories of H.G. Augen Mar Dionysius

Today is the 40th day since we came in terms with the heart breaking
and unbelievable tragedy. As we remember thirumeni's contributions to
this church, we must continue to pray for thirumeni's soul and work
towards making his dreams a reality.

His life was a life of prayer and service to the poor. Here are some
of the precious moments as we remember him on his 40th day.

http://www.stgregoriosaustin.org/photoGallery.php?ShowId=163801

[Note: Please click the play button on the player to start the slide show.]

Thanks,
Rajesh Vargheese
http://www.stgregoriosaustin.org/

An Interview with H.G. Augen Mar Dionysius: English text

An Interview with H.G. Augen Mar Dionysius: English text

Recently many individuals and churches have requested us for the
download option for the interview with H.G. Augen Mar Dionysius. We
have worked with the people who have approached us with this request.
If anyone else wanted it and could not contact us, we would like to
let everyone know that the download option is enabled and if any one
wishes to download, feel free to do so.

The purpose of the interview was to create awareness about Idukki
among the people. This interview also gives a clear idea of
thirumeni's values, focus and vision. Hence, feel free to link this
interview to your websites, download, edit or use the interview in any
form as long as it is inline with the purpose. There are no copyrights
or credits required.

Even though thirumeni was one of the youngest bishops, his values and
visions are valuable guides for us in the future. To spread the vision
of thirumeni to a larger audience, we have translated the interview to
English text. We hope this will enable our younger generation to learn
more about the visions of thirumeni. The English text of the interview
is available at

http://www.stgregoriosaustin.org/interviewWithHGAugenMarDionysius.php

You can also reach this through the common page that contains the
information about thirumeni. We will continue to add more information
on this page in the days to come. If you would like to link this page,
please feel free to do so. Also if you have information or resources
on thirumeni, please send us your link. We will be glad to link your
page to this page. The page is located at

http://www.stgregoriosaustin.org/HGAugenMarDionysius.php

May his values and visions become a reality in the near future.

Thanks,
Rajesh Vargheese
http://www.stgregoriosaustin.org/

TID-7: What could we have done better: The discontinuous Leadership?

TID-7: What could we have done better: The discontinuous Leadership?

In the last article, we saw the great things that IOC did to reach out
to the people of Idukki. This series would be a one sided story if we
do not look at where we could have done better. More over, our
strength is not in suppressing our mistakes, but to confront them and
make changes to better handle such situations in the future. In
addition to these reasons, we must try to understand why such
situations happen and why it is important for us to support bishops
who take up challenging tasks in such situations.

As we learnt, the time period of 1992-2005 can be considered the
blackout era of Idukki. In this period there was never a full time
metropolitan for Idukki. Either someone had an additional charge or
there was no bishop to lead Idukki diocese.

Why did this happen? May be we didn't have enough bishops.

Well, let's look at some statistics to see if this was the reason.

In 1992, IOC had 20 dioceses. In 2002, the historic unification
happened. At this time, four of the best 'cream layer' peace loving
metropolitans joined us. This resulted in the increase of the number
of bishops by 4. In addition to the dioceses that were formed as a
result of unification, we also formed new dioceses such as the
Mavelikara diocese. By 2002, number of dioceses went up to 25
dioceses. We also appointed bishops for all the 2002 newly formed
dioceses.

It is interesting to note that even in 2002, even though we were able
to find full time bishops for even newly created dioceses such as
Mavelikara, we were not able to find a full time bishop for Idukki
diocese, a place that has been thirsting for a bishop for more than a
decade. Idukki for some reason remained the neglected child.

To understand why this happened, here are some of the questions that
we should ask ourselves with respect to the inability to find bishops
for Idukki.

1. If there is a shortage of bishops, what should be our approach in
assigning bishops?
2. If we had a shortage of bishops, was it a good idea to form new dioceses?
3. If we have a shortage of bishops, is it fair for one diocese to
suffer for 13 years?
4. Even if we had a shortage of bishops, why didn't any bishops
volunteer to be the bishop of Idukki?

We will look at each of these of these questions in detail in the next
couple of articles.

Let us start with the first question by asking another question.

Assume that you are in charge of 25 children and that one among the 25
was handicapped. If you had 24 caretakers, which child you would
assign the first and the best caretaker. Undoubtedly, you would assign
the first and best caretaker to care for the handicapped child.

Based on this answer, Idukki being the most backward diocese must have
got the first and best bishop, but it did not happen at times,
especially from 1992-2005.

Idukki diocese is small diocese with just 34 churches, many of them
not even able to pay salaries to their priests. It is highly likely
that the reason why Idukki did not get a full time bishop was because
it was a small diocese. While making a decision of assigning a bishop
(full time Vs part time), we could at least have four view points.
They are

1. Being a small diocese, the needs might be less and hence let us
appoint a part time bishop.
2. Being a small diocese, we want to grow it into a large diocese,
which needs lots of effort and hence let us appoint a full time bishop
3. Even though a diocese is small, based on other considerations such
as geographical spread and developmental challenges, to be effective,
let us appoint a full time bishop.
4. Due to the distance and transportation challenges to the closest
dioceses, it might be ineffective for a bishop to execute his duties
in two dioceses. Hence let us appoint a full time bishop for the
remote diocese.

The situations in viewpoints 2-4 are very true for Idukki diocese and
hence a full time bishop is an absolute must, even if there was a
shortage of bishops. The ideal approach in a scenario where we have
shortage of bishops would be to share bishops between dioceses that do
not have these challenges.

Unfortunately there have been times when the IOC leadership made
decisions ignoring view points 2-4. The cost of these decisions
probably triggered the decay of Idukki diocese.

Next Article: TID-8: What could we have done better: Aggravating the
Bishop Shortage?

Thanks,
Rajesh Vargheese
http://www.stgregoriosaustin.org/

TID-6: Idukki Diocese and IOC: What did we do right?

TID-6: Idukki Diocese and IOC: What did we do right?

As we learned earlier, Idukki diocese had its share of 'good days' and
'not so good days'. IOC has spent lot of effort towards the faithful
of Idukki diocese. IOC gets a lot of credit for the good days of
Idukki diocese. We will look at some of the things that IOC did for
the betterment of the people for Idukki diocese.

The visionaries of IOC were the first ones to think about the faithful
of Idukki. This led IOC to walk into Idukki and be the first
denomination to setup a diocese in Idukki to care for the faithful of
Idukki. To venture into a terrain to serve the poor people of Idukki
without being pulled back by the challenges was one the greatest acts
of Christian love.

IOC appointed a very capable leader (H.G. Barnabas thirumeni) to
establish its diocese in Idukki. The disciple and service mentality of
its leadership helped make the right choices for Idukki diocese. As we
saw earlier, this action triggered great development of the Idukki
diocese in the early days.

With IOC's organizational structure and resource sharing model, IOC
provided all the help needed for Idukki diocese in its early days. IOC
provided support from neighboring diocese in the form of clergy and
other resources.

IOC has always provided assistance to Idukki diocese to sustain the
salaries of priests belonging to churches that could not afford their
salary share.

The mission society has provided small grants to Idukki diocese from
its Mission Sunday collections even though there were no organizations
operated by the mission society.

IOC has provided help to build churches and sustain maintenance of the
churches from the Catholicate day collection and from the Devalokam
account.

IOC has responded to emergencies that have occurred in Idukki. When a
church had collapsed due to rain, IOC did provide a major helping hand
in the reconstruction of the church.

IOC also has been proactive in ensuring the long term growth needs of
Idukki diocese. To balance the inequalities of the standards of
education, IOC has quotas for each diocese in its admission process to
the Seminary. These have ensured that Idukki has priests from among
its own people.

During the term of the previous H.H Bava thirumeni, a thirusheshipu of
Parumala thirumeni was setup in Puttady. This attracts thousands of
faithful to this place and thereby helped retain the faithful.

IOC selected peermedu as one of its locations to setup an IOC run
Engineering College. This definitely has a positive impact on the
local economy and provides more job and educational opportunities.

Lately, IOC appointed another very capable metropolitan (H.G. Augen
Mar Dionysius) to take over the administration of Idukki. This was
prompted a revival of Idukki from its 'not so good days'. IOC
continues to shoulder its responsibility to Idukki through the
metropolitan.

Apart from the things that IOC directly did, the IOC churches across
the world have been a major source of help for the diocese.

The list goes on. IOC does get lot of credits for the good things that
it has done in Idukki.

To be continued…

Next Article: TID-7: ID: What could we have done better: The
Discontinuous Leadership?

Thanks,
Rajesh Vargheese
http://www.stgregoriosaustin.org/