Cardinal George Alencherry’s admission that a mistake was made in 2018 with regard to the sale of land belonging to the archdiocese and his expression of regret over it had come too late, claimed the archdiocesan unit of lay peoples’ forum Almaya Munnettam here on Thursday.

In a statement, forum leaders Jemi Augustine and Riju Kanjukkaran said that if the Cardinal had owned up his mistake in 2018, the archdiocese would have willingly put up with the losses.

However, the lay forum alleged that the Cardinal had acted in defiance of the faithful and priests of the archdiocese causing a big rift in the archdiocese.