A section of the Catholic Church on Sunday went a step ahead in its offensive against the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government by calling for setting up parish-based vigilante groups to protect minority interests.
The unusual announcement was made by Mar James Pazhayattil, the Bishop of Irinjalukuda in central Kerala, in the form of yet another pastoral letter during the Sunday sermons.
It called upon the faithful to be wary of “pseudo revolutionaries’’ who were “wolves in sheep’s clothing”. The exhortation comes a week after the church call for a second “liberation struggle” against the LDF government did not find many takers. The church had then accused the government of stifling minority rights and faith through skewed educational reforms.
 A pastoral letter was also read out in churches under the Changanasserry Archdiocese which also falls under the influential Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, that runs many health and educational institutions.
The new developments come in the wake of the government’s persistent efforts to regulate admissions, fee structure and even teachers’ appointments in the higher education sector and minority-run professional colleges.
Protest day
The church has been severely criticising the violence unleashed by pro-Communist Party and Communist Party of India youth organisations against its institutions.
The letters urged the believers to foil any attempts to denigrate the church and also asked them to observe July 29 as protest day against the anti-minority policies of the state government.
However, the Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan said that his government’s education policy was not anti-minority. Rather, it had a greater responsibility to ensure that social justice is done to all.