NEW DELHI, Dec. 12 -- A. Adappur is a familiar byline in the Malayalam literary circles for almost six decades now. At a time Left-leaning writers dominated Kerala's rich literary universe, it was uncommon for a Christian clergyman to engage on a regular basis with the secular world. For Fr. Abraham Adappur, however, writing was his way of bearing witness to Christ. And despite his image as a Communist baiter, Adappur critiqued the positions taken by the Church with utmost fairness, and went on to be counted among the finest public intellectuals of Kerala in his prime. He was averse to using prefixes such as 'Fr.' or 'Dr.', as he preferred his writing to do the talking than such labels.

Fr. A Adappur passed away at the age of 96 on Dece...