Kochi (Kerala), Aug 10 - The global recession seems to have hit the Catholic church in Kerala as well.

An article in Indiancatholic.com website has quoted a Catholic bishop as saying that recession has led to a 50 percent drop in the outsourcing of 'mass intentions', or remembrances to Indian priests of the Catholic church from Western countries.

The Indiancatholic.com, the official website of the spokesperson and media/information office of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI), quotes Bishop Sebastian Adayanthrath, the Auxiliary Bishop of Ernakulam-Angamly archdiocese in Kerala, as saying that requests for prayers with special intentions or mass intentions used to pour into states like Kerala where Catholicism still thrives. Countries like the United States, Canada and Europe, where there is reported to be a shortage of priests, would 'outsource' requests for special prayers to Indian churches.

Fr Paul Thelekkat, official spokesperson of the Syro Malabar Catholic Church, told IANS that though the word 'outsourcing' cannot be used for religious purposes, 'it is not something new in the Catholic church because this has been going on for more than 100 years here'.