Obituary – Fr Thomas Kocherry CSsR

Come the start of the monsoon season next month, hundreds of fishing trawlers will come to a standstill for 45 days on the shores of the Arabian Sea in the southern Indian state of Kerala. The annual ban on mechanised fishing during the breeding season to conserve fish stocks is a legacy of the Redemptorist priest, Fr Thomas Kocherry, who died of a heart attack last week aged 73.Fr Kocherry rose from being a tenacious campaigner for poor fishing families in Kerala to international status representing communities whose livelihoods were threatened from industrial fishing fleets and marine pollution caused by energy companies.Born the fifth of 11 children, he was ordained as a Redemptorist priest in 1971. He began work in a small village in Punthura parish in Kerala. He fulfilled literally t

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User Comments (1)

Comment by: Kate Keefe

Posted: 14/02/2023 14:11:36

Thank you so much for this, the best thing I have so far read on what it felt like to be there. The synod process grinds slowly on, and we are in danger of forgetting the hopes we had for it at the parish consultation stage. I particularly valued your careful observation and detailed account of what was going on, instead of letting yourself be sidetracked into discussing just what people were talking about. We need both sorts of reporting on this, and not enough people are doing the careful observing, let alone passing it on to the rest of us. Let's see what happens as the process continues; I hope we will get accounts like yours about the process once it moves to Rome.