A Carmelite From Kerala Takes the Crozier in Mainz
Joshy Pottackal, a 48-year-old Carmelite priest born in the village of Meenkunnam in Kerala, India, was ordained auxiliary bishop of Mainz on March 15, becoming the first non-European Catholic bishop in German history. The appointment carries symbolic weight in a country where over a quarter of Catholics in the Mainz diocese hold foreign citizenship, and where the Church has relied heavily on imported clergy for decades.
The Pillar's email interview with the bishop-elect reveals a man who is disarmingly practical about his own credentials and deeply aware of what his brown skin signals in a country grappling with rising xenophobia.
I must say that I feel both honored and humbled to be the first non-European bishop to be appointed in Germany. I hope I will not be the last!
That exclamation point does a lot of work. Pottackal is plainly conscious that his appointment is meant to say something beyond his personal qualifications. Whether the German Church hierarchy will follow through with further non-European appointments, or whether this remains a singular gesture, is the real question.
The Kerala-to-Germany Pipeline
The roots of Pottackal's journey run through an institutional pipeline that has connected Kerala and Germany for half a century. The Carmelite order's Upper German province established its first Indian foundation in 1973, and the order's Province of St. Thomas was formally erected in India in 2007. Pottackal joined the Carmel Nivas Minor Seminary in 1992, at age fifteen.
His path to the priesthood was marked by profound personal loss. According to a biography compiled by his province, his mother died in an accident in 1995 during his novitiate year, and his father died the following year after a long illness. An aunt stepped in to raise the three brothers.
I am a member of the St. Thomas Province of the Carmelite order in India, which was founded by what was then the Upper German province of the Carmelite order. That means I actually took my vows and was ordained as a priest as a member of the Upper German province, which then invited me to come to Germany and serve there.
Pottackal had dreamt of missionary work in northern India or Africa, but following his 2003 ordination, the order sent him to Mainz instead. He arrived with a beginner's German course under his belt and served initially as a youth chaplain while learning the language. He became a German citizen in 2014.
Navigating Two Rites and Two Worlds
One of the more technically interesting aspects of the appointment is its liturgical complexity. Pottackal was raised in the Syro-Malabar Church, one of the Eastern Catholic churches in full communion with Rome. To celebrate in the Latin Rite in Germany, he was granted an indult of biritualism from the Apostolic See.
The decision to appoint me, a member of the Syro-Malabar Church, as a bishop in the Latin Church was an individual decision by the Holy Father. Once I am ordained as a bishop in the Latin Church, I will need to obtain an indult of biritualism if I wish to celebrate a Pontifical Mass in the Syro-Malabar rite or to administer sacraments.
This is a striking bureaucratic inversion: a man born into one ancient rite must obtain special permission to celebrate in it after being elevated within another. It speaks to the layered complexity of Catholic ecclesiology, where unity does not mean uniformity but does apparently mean paperwork.
Two Churches, Sharply Contrasted
Pottackal's comparison of Indian and German Catholicism is the interview's richest section, and he delivers it with the candor of someone who has spent two decades living between both worlds. Mass attendance is far higher in India. Traditional piety -- Adoration, rosaries, novenas, blessings of new cars and houses -- is deeply embedded in daily life.
It can be noted that Christians in India are generally more obedient to the churches' authorities and less critical of them than their German counterparts. Churches in Germany face criticism not only from the inside, but also from the outside and society as a whole.
He is remarkably forthright about the gap in safeguarding efforts. While the abuse crisis has dominated German Catholic discourse for years, Pottackal acknowledges that in India, safeguarding efforts remain, as he puts it, "in their infancy." This is a rare admission from a bishop-level cleric about his home church, and it deserves more attention than the interviewer gave it.
Yet a mild counterpoint is warranted: Pottackal's framing of Indian Catholicism as "more traditional" risks flattening a complex picture. The Syro-Malabar Church has been riven by its own liturgical controversies in recent years, with open defiance of Vatican directives by some clergy. Obedience to authority is not quite as uniform as the answer suggests.
Many issues that are much discussed in Germany hardly have any relevance in India at all -- for example, the role of women in church, the attitude towards LGBTQ, or priestly celibacy.
That these issues "hardly have any relevance" is itself a statement worth interrogating. They may not be discussed in Indian Catholic institutions, but the people affected by them certainly exist. Silence is not the same as irrelevance.
The Pragmatist Without a Doctorate
Pottackal's self-description as a non-theorist is refreshingly plain for a bishop. At a press conference following his appointment, he told journalists he was not "a theorist with a doctorate," a remark he clearly enjoyed making.
I consider myself a pragmatist who favors pragmatic solutions. I have worked in pastoral care for many years, and I feel that my strengths lie in pastoral work and working with people, not in scientific or theoretical research.
He added, with evident amusement, that Indian media had automatically awarded him a doctorate upon his appointment. The German episcopal culture, where academic credentials carry enormous weight, will test whether pragmatism is truly valued or merely tolerated in a man who stands out for other reasons.
A Signal Against Xenophobia -- Or Merely a Symbol?
Pottackal frames his appointment partly in political terms, noting that twenty-five percent of Catholics in Germany have non-German backgrounds, as do twenty-five percent of priests serving there.
My appointment can be considered as a way of taking a stand against growing racism and xenophobia in Germany. Immigration is a part of Germany, and therefore immigrants are a natural part of all areas of society.
Bishop Peter Kohlgraf of Mainz called the nomination "a powerful and important signal for our time," and drew a parallel to Cardinal Robert Prevost, an American who served as bishop in Peru before being elevated to prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops. The comparison is apt on one level -- both are cross-cultural appointments -- but it obscures important differences. An American bishop in Peru carries different connotations than an Indian bishop in a Germany where the AfD has surged to become the country's second-largest party.
Whether this appointment translates into structural change or remains an isolated symbolic act depends entirely on what follows. One non-European bishop in a country with twenty-seven dioceses is a gesture. Five would be a trend.
Bottom Line
Joshy Pottackal's elevation to auxiliary bishop of Mainz is genuinely historic, and his interview with The Pillar reveals an appealingly grounded cleric who knows exactly what his appointment means and does not pretend otherwise. His comparative analysis of Indian and German Catholicism is worth reading for anyone interested in how the global Church actually functions across cultures. The article is strongest when Pottackal speaks in his own voice and weakest when it lets significant claims -- particularly about safeguarding in India and the supposed irrelevance of women's roles and LGBTQ issues -- pass without follow-up. What remains to be seen is whether the German Church treats this as the beginning of genuine diversification or as a one-off appointment that satisfies a quota no one will admit exists.