Religious Outsourcing Lucrative but Draws Flak within Community

The marketing slogan conjured up by Kerala State Tourism Development Corporation – “God's Own Country” – is proving surprisingly apt now that this picture postcard Indian state, famous for its lush palms and coastline, is becoming a spiritual outsourcing center for the western countries.

With Roman Catholic clergy in short supply in the west, American, as well as Canadian and European churches, are sending Mass intentions – requests for services like those to remember deceased relatives and thanksgiving prayers – to clergy in India.

In Kerala, a state with one of the largest concentrations of Christians in India, churches often receive intentions from overseas. The Masses are conducted in Malayalam, the native language. The intention – often a prayer for the repose of the soul of a deceased relative, or for a sick family member, thanksgiving for a favor received, or a prayer offering for a newborn – is announced at Mass.

Reports from Kerala say bishops have had to limit priests to just one mass a day to prevent them from denying others a slice of the pie. The rates for each mass, that is performed in front of a public congregation, vary from country to country: a request from North America or Europe can net a priest at least $ 5; poorer countries pay less. In Kerala's churches, memorial and thanksgiving prayers conducted for local residents are said for a donation of 40 rupees

In the past, such requests for prayers for thanksgiving, forgiveness or remembrance were directed to an individual priest. These days, they tend to be routed to Kerala through church bodies in the US or Europe who cannot cope with the demand. Most of the requests are posted or e–mailed to Kerala bishops, who then share them out among the clergy. Priests who have worked in the West receive direct requests from friends and contacts there.

Father Benson Kundulam, who lived in Paris for several years, recently held a requiem mass in Cochin for a man in France mourning the death of his father.

“It doesn't matter where the person is from, we treat the request the same,” he was quoted as saying.

The money, he says, is the last thing on the priest's mind.

“It is a religious duty to say the mass. We do it the same, whether it is an Indian paying a few rupees or an American paying dollars.”

His colleague, Father Tony Paul, who has not traveled abroad, gets far fewer foreign requests and more Indian ones, which earn only a third of the money. “If you don't get personal requests, it is up to the bishops to hand them out,” he said.

Church officials say that prayers for the dead have been outsourced for decades and that the tradition has been thrust into the spotlight only because of the controversy over corporate outsourcing in the West.

“Priests and bishops abroad have no choice but to send them here or else the mass intentions would never be said,” said Rev. Paul Thelakkat, the spokesman for the Synod of Bishops of the Syro–Malabar Church in Cochin. “There are more people offering Mass stipends and less priests to say Mass,” he explains. “And that is the reason the Mass stipends have to be sent to some other country.”

“Sometimes we have bishops abroad collecting these requests which they then send to a bishop here who distributes them to various priests to be carried out. These services are strictly monitored by the church,” Father Thelakkat said.

Church officials say such practices are becoming inevitable due to the difficulty western churches face in recruiting more priests.
Asked if it feels odd to be saying a mass for someone at the other end of the world, Father Barun John, also in Cochin, says: “When I say a mass, I don't look at the origin or person behind it. It might come from a villager in Kerala or from someone in Toronto or Madrid. “My duty is to perform the mass in the most sacred manner.”
A Holy Mass at the St Joseph Catholic Church in Cochin was conducted last month for a departed soul in Germany. The memorial service was the request of a German couple who had outsourced it for their son who died of cancer two years ago.
In Thrissur diocese, a morning mass was recently conducted to resolve the marriage woes of soccer star David Beckham. A fan from London paid for the mass so that the soccer star's media nightmare over his “affairs” would end.
In yet another case, thanksgiving mass was outsourced for the running success of German Formula One champion, Michael Schumacher.
Sebastian Adayanthrath, auxialiary bishop of the Ernakulam–Angamaly diocese in Kochi, said his diocese received a monthly average of 350 Mass intentions, which are passed to the needy priests. He added that in Kerala, where priests earn about Rs 2,000, the overseas money is a welcome supplement.

In Bangalore's Dharmaram College, Rector James Narithookil said he often received requests for Mass intentions from abroad, which he disbursed among the 50 priests in his seminary. Most of the requests from the United States were for requiems, with donations of $ 5 to 10, he said.
However, this ‘spiritual’ outsourcing has its own share of critics. Several critics within the Christian community have condemned the phenomenon and have expressed their shock in outsourcing of religious services. ‘Outsourcing’ is a word normally used for clerical and other office jobs that migrate to countries with lower wages, they said, viewing religious outsourcing as the ‘sale of spirituality.’
Critics warn that unscrupulous priests are scrambling to make a profit, with no way to verify whether the clerics perform the ceremonies. Church officials insist, however, that priests are restricted to one mass a day to prevent the hoarding of requests.
In London, Amicus, the labor union that represents 1.2 million British workers, called on the government and workers to treat outsourcing of prayers as a serious issue.
In a news release, David Fleming, national secretary for finance of Amicus, said the assignment of prayers “shows that no aspect of life in the West is sacred.”
“The very fabric of the nation is changing,” he said. “We need to have a long, hard think about what the future is going to look like.”

The new phenomenon of priests earning money for performing prayers for “clients” abroad, which has brought cheer to the Catholic priests' fraternity, has also not gone down well with Protestant and Eastern Churches.

Offering prayers on payment is not a healthy trend, said Reverend Dr. Geevarghese Mar Theodosius, the bishop of the Mar Thoma Church.

“When I receive money, I always make it a point to ask the person who gives it, for what purpose of charity I should use this and I do it according to what they say. I don't use it for my personal needs,” he said.

“I don't endorse this practice but this could be happening because it is a good financial proposition,” said the bishop.

Reverend Sam Samuel of the Church of South India, one of the main Protestant churches, said the issue of outsourcing of prayers had to be examined.

“When a prayer is offered for thanksgiving, or for the dead or for any other purpose, the priest should have some emotional attachment to the person who seeks these prayers,” said Rev. Samuel.

“If that emotional attachment is not there, it becomes a mere mechanical ritual. I really do not know if it would be a meaningful exercise.”

Rev. Samuel quoted the Bible as preaching that it was always better to get elders and priests to say prayers. He wondered whether it was right to ask a priest to pray for someone he does not know and cannot see.

However, Catholic priests predictably see nothing wrong in the practice. Local priests, as well as congregationists, defend the practice of Special Intentions, which, they say, has been accepted for a long time now.

They also justify donations from overseas as a way for rich churches in need of priests to share and support smaller churches in poor countries.

A senior church member in Cochin said: “We do not want to look at it commercially. But it is a huge service. The churches abroad also see this as an opportunity to help out cash–starved parishes and monasteries here.”

Rev. Geevarghese Erakacthu, the parish vicar of one of the biggest Orthodox Church here, says that there is nothing wrong in this since there are times during the annual festival of the church when devotees put up requests to pray for their near and dear ones who have passed away.

“At times there are so many requests that I often invite fellow priests as guests to perform rituals in the course of the Holy Communion. There is nothing wrong in this,” said Rev. Erakacthu.

“The prayer is heartfelt, and every prayer is treated as the same whether it is paid for in dollars, euros or in rupees,” Rev. Paul Thelakkat of Cochin Archdiocese said.
In New Delhi, Vice President of the All India Catholic Union, Dr. John Dayal, said that saying mass at long distance is quite common and is part of reaching out to believers. He notes that Indian clergy also assist western churches by doing temporary work in summer months when local priests go on vacation.
“A very large number of Indian theological students who are priests, full–fledged priests, they go out and they make a little money in America, in Germany, in England in France,” he noted.

By a Special Correspondent