A city civil court has granted permanent injunction restraining Roman Catholic bishops and priests from using a Tamil translation of the Missal 1993, the liturgical book, in churches under their jurisdiction.
Passing a judgement on an original suit , IV Assistant Judge T. Chandrasekar held that the ‘Thiruppali book’, a translated work by the bishops was illegal, improper, incorrect, unbiblical and ultra vies of the Canon Law.
The suit, filed by G. Alex Benziger, Leonard Vasanth and J. V. Fernando of Chennai, contended that the archbishops and bishops released the first vernacular Missal in 1970, further changed and released again in 1979 after duly obtaining the prior review of Vatican. But in 1993, they made further unwarranted and improper changes in the liturgical book and released it for use in all Catholic churches without obtaining the prior approval of the Holy See. They also alleged that the bishops had deliberately by-passed and disobeyed the specific rules of the Vatican and overstepped their authority and that the translated version had diluted and denied the doctorinal teachings.
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The judge in his ruling said, “the book was released without bringing to the knowledge of the Apostle in Vatican and as such, the release is illegal and offensive”. However the court granted the bishops liberty to release the book after getting due approval.