How Sri Lanka undermined the infallibility of Pope John Paul Two
April 10th, 2005
By D.B.S. Jeyaraj
One of the greatest strengths or weaknesses of any Pope is the belief in his “divine” infallibility. One is able to discern the importance given to this infallibility concept in all the media hype surrounding the death of Pope John Paul the second. It was this confidence in Papal infallibility by the incumbent Pope and like minded faith on the part of followers that contributed greatly towards the authoritative mystique exercised by Karol Wajtyla in his Popish avatar.
The infallibility of the Pope is almost sacrosanct in Vatican circles. There is the humorous anecdote about Irish patriot and medical doctor Oliver Gogarty and Pope Pius. Eamon de Valera and Oliver Gogarty were having a Papal audience. Both were decorated by the Pope. As was the custom a priestly aide took the tray bearing two medals to the relatively less important gogarty first. Impulsive as ever Gogarty took the larger medal meant for De Valera and promptly put it in his pocket. Eamon was left with the smaller one.
After the audience was over and both were leaving an eminent Cardinal rushed after them. Accosting Oliver Gogarty the prelate blurted “Dr. Gogarty a dreadful mistake has been made”. Without batting an eyelid Gogarty retorted frostily ” Have I come all the way to the Vatican to have the infallibility of the Pope questioned?”. The Cardinal beat a hasty retreat. Gogarty kept his medal. The Popes infallibility remained untarnished..
With all the grandeur surrounding this belief readers may be intrigued about how Pope John Paul’s infallibility was undermined by the tiny Island nation of Sri Lanka. It is all tied up with the Country’s protracted ethnic conflict tearing the land apart. The Sinhala – Tamil ethnic divide has affected the Catholic Church
there too. Clergy and laity think of themselves often as Sinhala or Tamil first. Being Catholic is relegated to second place.
Our story revolves around the dastardly murder of a Tamil Catholic Priest in Vankala in the North- Western district of Mannar. The priest Fr. Mary Bastian was abducted by a section of the armed forces and murdered after torture. The body was clandestinely burnt. The incident occurred on January 5th 1985.
Several witnesses saw the Priest being taken away by the soldiers. The incident caused massive resentment in Catholic majority Mannar district.
If the detention of Catholic priests like Fr. Aabaranam Singarayar and Anton Sinnarasa had evoked much protest in Tamil Catholic circles the killing of Mary Bastian sent shock waves. It was the first time a Catholic priest had been killed in this manner. Some days later a Methodist Priest George Jeyarajasingham was ambushed and killed by soldiers at Murungan also in Mannar district. Years later Catholic priests like Fr. Wenceslaus and Fr. Chandra Fernando were also killed.
The government of Junius Richard Jayewardene was in the dock. His national security minister Lalith Athulathmudali got a lot of flak internationally. Vatican evinced concern over Mary Bastian. Moreover Pope John Paul the second engaged in action that sent shivers down the UNP government heavily dependent on the Catholic coastal belt at that time.
Pope John Paul engaged in a special prayer for the departed souls of Fr. Mary Bastian and killed Polish solidarity personality Jerzy Popiesky. A Papal pronouncement was made and publicised through customary Vatican channels. Sympathetic concern for the brutal murder of Fr. Mary Bastian echoed all over the Catholic hemisphere.
Athulathmudali in typical Goebbelsian style issued a complete denial. He denied the murder had occurred and added insult to injury by tarnishing the dead priests reputation. The Oxford – Harvard educated Athulathmudali charged that Mary Bastian had run away to India and that he was very much alive in Tamil Nadu. With a censorship in vogue several news agencies picked
up the story. The vehement rebuttal issued by the Tamil Catholic Bishops was virtually suppressed.
To their eternal shame many Sinhala catholic priests collaborated in this elaborate cover up. The most serious collaborator was the present Arch Bishop of Colombo Rt. Rev Oswald Gomis. This priestly propagandist took up Athulathmudalis position and with the tacit consent of Arch Bishop Nicholas Marcus Fernando wrote to the Vatican that Fr. Mary Bastian was alive safely in India. Unfortunately some bigwigs in Rome fell for this story. If the denial came from a government the Holy See would have been skeptical. But coming from eminent men of the cloth there were few doubting Thomases.
This led to the Pope retracting his earlier statement. A fresh press release was issued by Vatican. In that the Pope corrected himself on Fr. Mary Bastian. The Pope had erred in praying for his departed soul. Joyfully he was alive the statement said. In a regrettable omission the Tamil Catholic priests were not consulted by Vatican prior to the retraction. It was later that Vatican was appraised of the true position and realised belatedly that the Holy father had been cunningly deceived by jackals in Shepherdly clothing.
Issuing a further correction remedying the previous position would have eroded the Popes credibility further. Already the image of Papal infallibility had been dented. The Tamil Catholic clergy to its credit did not want to embarrass the Pope anymore. They were devoted to the Pope. It was not for nothing that the
world engages in the chorus “John Paul Two, We Love You”. So they let it go. This was how the Popes infallibility was undermined by Sri Lanka. Firstly it was by retraction of an earlier position an almost unheard of thing. Secondly it was sticking to the same position without correcting it though aware of it being
incorrect.
This man who acted as a Luciferian instrument in deceiving the Pope is now the Colombo Archbishop. This Cardinal Richelieu like Bishops rise in the Catholic church is due to his easy access to the Sinhala corridors of Political power. Oswald Gomis is the only high ranking Catholic prelate from the dominant Goigama caste. This factor coupled with his conservative, pro establishment,Sinhala supremacist views made him one of the powers behind the Sinhala throne.
Casteism is a reality even in the Church. There was a time when all the Tamil Bishops came from the Vellalar community of Karamban. There are churches with “unwritten” rules of being confined to worship by particular castes alone. This feature may be less pronounced in the Sinhala South but the caste factor
is always there. Oswald Gomis was personally close to several politically powerful Sinhala families. This writer has no qualms in describing this arch – conservative, racist reactionary as a political peddler in priestly garb.
Unlike some of the courageous and progressive Sinhala catholic Bishops like Leo Nanayakkara, Frank Marcus Fernando or Malcolm Ranjith Oswald Gomis is one who always wants to hold “pandang” to the Sinhala Buddhists in power.
This appeasement was done earlier at the expense of Tamil Catholics. His consistent attempts to silence the “voice of truth” broadcast by the Manila based “Veritas” Radio is a case in point. Gomis conducted a systematic campaign against Fr. Jegath Gaspar Raj and tried to get him removed at the behest of his masters in Colombo. Gaspar Raj through Veritas was highlighting
the pathetic plight of Sri Lankan Tamils.
In spite of this shameless surrender to Sinhala Buddhist hegemony Humpty – Dumpty has had a great fall. The Buddhist forces of intolerance unleashed in the fifties started with the usurping of the roundabout pedestal meant for Josephian rector Fr. Le Goc and went on in the sixties to take over Schools and Hospitals and substitute Poya for Sunday Holiday. Now the same forces are all out to deprive Christians of the freedom to worship and practise their religion.
The Catholic Church should have been at the vanguard of resistance to these efforts. But under Oswald Gomis it displays a shameful inertia. Earlier the Church tried to dissociate from the “evangelicals” under the self – centred belief that the ultra nationalists will leave them alone. But no , the neo fascists know
who their real enemy is and have zoomed in onto target.
It is a historical fact that Tamil Catholics have been comparatively reluctant to emphasise their “Tamilness” in earlier years. On the contrary some piliticised Sinhala clergymen have not been hesitant to push the Snhala line. The most famous or notorious case being that of Bishop Edmund Peiris . When the Chilaw Diovese was carved out of the Northern diocese a substantial concentration of Catholics along the Western seaboard were Tamil Bharathas or “Parathavar”.
Peiris came out with the nomenclature “Tamil Speaking Sinhalese” in relation to the Bharatha community and projected the line that their medium of instruction should be Sinhala. So 48 Tamil medium schools and Tamil streams in schools became Sinhala overnight. It was cultural genocide. The grandchildren began
speaking Sinhala while the grandparents spoke Tamil. The parents were caught in between. Former Arch Bishop Nicholas Marcus Fernando’s mother from Mundal was literate in Tamil only. The son used to correspond in Tamil with the mother.
The transformation of Bharatha identity from Sinhala to Tamil through education is a phenomenal example of a majority assimilating a minority. Mercifully the Bharathas of Vankalai and Pesalai coming under the Northern diocese were free of this “Sinhalaisation” and remain fiercely proud Tamils. The
tragic aspect of this identity conversion was the silent acceptance of this perversion of justice by Tamil Catholics in the name of religion.
Catholics of a later era blame former Jaffna Bishop Emilianuspillai for this lapse. During colonial times the Catholic church in Sri Lanka comprised only two Dioceses – The Northern and Southern. The Northern diocese consisted of the Northern and Eastern Provinces along with areas extending downwards to
Negombo , Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa. Though Tamils are only one – sixth of the Sinhala population the Sinhala – Tamil ratio in the Catholic church was six to five.
If the Tamil Catholics were vigilant they could hve sought and obtained a separate Arch Diocese for the North – East. This is both administratively convenient and culturally homogeneous. There is nothing wrong in this arrangement. In India for instance the state of Tamil Nadu though uniformly Tamil speaking has two Arch dioceses headquartered in Madurai and Chennai. Just as the political leadership of the Tamils at dawn of Independence from
Britain failed to articulate and demand a federal set up the Tamil Catholic hierarchy too failed to get a separate Archdiocese.
Years later the history conscious Jaffna Bishop Rt. Rev Deogupillai felt the necessity for a demarcation. He wrote to Vatican in 1976 seeking a separate Arch Diocese. There was immense merit in this request. Yet the Sinhala Catholics came down on him like a ton of bricks. Even a progressive like Bishop Leo Nanayakkara condemned Deogupillai for raising the demand. This was linked to the 1976 Vaddukkoddai resolution for Tamil Eelam and depicted as a separatist threat. Deogupillai backed down against his better judgement.
The question of a separate North – Eastern Arch diocese loomed large again in the early eighties. The arrest of Tamil Catholic priests under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act brought out sharply the ethnic divide in the Catholic Church. Sinhala and Tamil Catholics perceived the same phenomena through different prisms. The Papal nuncio in Colombo Nicolo Rotunno was
broadly sympathetic. The Vatican was concerned about the arrested priests plight. The Popes representative also took up the issue with Jayewardene. There was much speculation that a separate North – Eastern Archdiocese was in the offing. Colombo acted hastily and firmly. The papal nuncio was unceremoniously expelled.
Thereafter Vatican did not pursue the “separate” Arch diocese proposal. Pope John Paul Two preferred nd backed Catholic unity. The 1983 violence could have seen the emergence of a North – Eastern arch diocese but for one factor. Jayewardene cleverly blamed it on Communists, Trotkyites, Marxists and Maoists. This was anathema to Pope John Paul whose greatest accomplishment is precipitating the dismantling of the Soviet Communist “Empire”.
Pope John Paul two was fully conversant with the Sri Lankan Tamil predicament. He was briefed on this regularly by Cardinal Loudesamy of Bangalore later stationed in the Vatican. Archbishop Aarolliyasamy of Madurai who was once manhandled at Madhu by Sinhala Catholics for preaching in Tamil also had the Popes ear on this. Though sympathetic the Pope wanted
the Catholic church to remain united. At one stage when Sinhala and Tamil Bishops were dangerously drifting apart Pope John Paul summoned all ten Bishops for a special meeting to Vatican and persuaded them to forge unity in diversity.
One of the things the Pope mentioned then was remarkably prophetic. He pointed out that once the Catholic church was divided on ethnic lines fresh tensions will ensue between Catholics and the Buddhist and Hindu majorities respectively. He warned of rising anti – Christian feelings on both sides of the ethnic divide and wanted the Church to remain united and strong to meet this challenge. Pope John Paul has passed away ,Those prophetic words of his are now coming true.
It remains to be seen whether the Church will face up to religious oppression unitedly in the future. Though highly desirable one cannot see true rapprochement taking place under Oswald Gomis. It may have been possible under someone like Malcolm Ranjith now out of the Country.On the other hand
feelings are rising among Tamil Catholics too. Fr. SJ Emmanuel once stated that he was first a Tamil and next a Catholic. Mannar Bishop Joseph Rayappu went on record defending the tiger flag as the Tamil Eelam flag. With Tamil Catholics identifying increasingly with Tamil Nationalism and Sinhala Catholics
with the Sri Lankan state genuine reconciliation seems remote.
The development that could transform this situation dramatically is rising Buddhist intolerance. There is every chance that the battlelines in Sri Lanka could be redrawn on religious lines. If that happens Sinhala and Tamil Christians could close ranks. Pope John Paul will be proven right. No force on earth can defeat an idea whose time has come.
Meanwhile the much loved Pope has been laid to rest. As Sri Lanka mourns the passing away of a truly great Pope, let us also remember how John Paul was misled by our Countrymen. Like the proverbial saying – about “the axe that chops the mighty ebony tree, getting stuck in a plantain tree”, it was tiny Sri
Lanka that eroded to some extent the infallibility of Pope John Paul the second.
Entry Filed under: MinorMatters
