The Syro Malabar Church is one of the Eastern Churches in communion with the Pope of Rome, and its identity as a Catholic Church makes its revolting actions in this incident understandable. Pope Francis has claimed risibly that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.” This has become a superdogma in the Catholic Church: if you don’t believe that Islam is a Religion of Peace, you will be ruthlessly harassed and silenced by the bishops of the Catholic Church, who are much more concerned that you believe that Islam is a religion of peace than that you believe in, say, the Nicene Creed. This man had his hand severed by Islamic jihadis? Sure, but he offended Islam! The Pope of Islam would want nothing less than his excommunication! Joseph is just lucky that the Catholics didn’t sever his other hand!
“Leave them; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14)
“Islamist Fundamentalists Severed His Hand, But Kerala Prof. Says His Church Did Worse,” by K.A. Shaji, Huffington Post India, February 12, 2020:
Thodupuzha, KERALA — On July 4, 2010, T.J. Joseph was returning home from Sunday mass with his family in Kerala’s Idukki district when a group of seven men stopped his car, dragged him out and chopped off his right hand at the wrist. The attackers accused Joseph, a Catholic and the head of the department of Malayalam at Newman College in Thodupuzha, of blasphemy and of insulting Prophet Mohammed in a question paper he had set. The gory incident made national and international headlines and was widely condemned.
According to the National Investigation Agency, the men who attacked Joseph “with deadly weapons and explosive materials” were members of the Popular Front of India (PFI). This organisation calls itself a social movement for the empowerment of minority communities, but is often labelled a radical outfit suspected of political killings and links with the Islamic State militant group. Most recently, in December 2019, several of its activists were arrested for allegedly instigating violence against the Citizenship Amendment Act in multiple states….
“Islamic fanatics attacked me once,” Joseph told HuffPost India in an interview shortly after his book’s release. “The Christian denomination to which I belong ruined my life by excommunicating me and terminating me from my job without giving any valid reason. Unable to withstand the isolation and financial crisis caused by the loss of my job, my wife died by suicide.”
Calling himself a “living martyr of Christian fanaticism”, the 63-year-old accused the church of making him a scapegoat to avoid a direct confrontation with the Muslim groups that attacked him….
“In the beginning, when the question paper controversy erupted, the Syro Malabar Church and the college management under it gave me their full support, vouching for my integrity,” Joseph recalled. “However, a high-level meeting of church authorities in Kerala was held and thereafter, everybody changed their stands. At the meeting, a decision was taken to not antagonise the PFI and other radical Islamic outfits. Thereafter, I was all alone.”
The meeting, Joseph said, was held in the second week of March 2010.
“It was the stand of the church supporting Islamic fundamentalism and the canard against me that resulted in the PFI attack and the loss of my hand.”…
According to academic and writer Shaji Jacob, the attack on Joseph was a wake-up call to Kerala on religious intolerance. “After Joseph’s hand was chopped off and his wife died by suicide, Kerala society started treating religious fundamentalism as a matter of utmost concern,” he said. “Now, his autobiography proves beyond doubt that no religious group is free from intolerance and obscurantism. The Catholic Church has treated him badly even after the courts exonerated him from the blasphemy charge.”