Joseph Mar Thoma, head of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar, on Saturday asked married priests of the ancient church of India to make their homes a model for the people, but warned that erring priests would be dealt with strictly.
“Discover yourself first before you discover others,” the Metropolitan told priests, while addressing the convocation ceremony of the first batch of counselling students at the Mar Thoma Guidance Centre here, affiliated to the Martin Luther Christian University, Shillong.
Be family-oriented
Mentioning the rising domestic violence and divorce cases among married priests, he said, “I am pained by the attitude of some of our new generation priests to their families. I am sorry to say that it was not the situation earlier (among priests),” he said, adding, “No licence has been given to husband to have domestic violence.” The Metropolitan asked the new generation priests to have close links with their family members to lead a healthy society.
He criticised the lifestyle of some of the priests and the way they lead their family life. He warned that such erring priests will be dealt with strictly.
Counselling
On the relevance of counselling in society, he said, “There is no ‘compromise’ in counselling, only ‘reconciliation’.” He stressed the need to strengthen the counselling ministry. “The first counselling institution is the home. Currently, the situation has changed with the emergence of nuclear families. In some cases they don’t want children. Some others ignore their children,” said Joseph Mar Thoma, who spearheaded the establishment of the counselling ministry in the Mar Thoma Church.
Fr. George Varghese, director of the centre, said, “As we felt the dearth for trained counsellors, we decided to start programmes to train barefoot counsellors.” Encouraged by the response of the public, the centre has taken further steps and the university permitted to start postgraduate diploma, MSc in Counselling Psychology and MPhil in Counselling Psychology, recognised by the University Grants Commission.
