Church's Connection with LTTE Through the Eyes of a Catholic
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Christians
Gracian Fernando, Australia
Dear Cardinal Oswald Gomis, It is with a heavy heart, I write this
open letter to you, the head of the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka,
sincerely hoping to draw your attention as well as the attention of
all Christians in my motherland.
I am a devout Catholic born and bred in Negombo, the unofficial
capital of Catholicism in Sri Lanka. My name reflects the Portugese
roots of our religion in Sri Lanka, just like yours, probably.
Although at present I live in Australia, having migrated due to family
reasons, I am a patriotic Sri Lankan who has served in the Sri Lankan
Navy for 12 years with the ID Number A2860. Therefore, I keep myself
well informed about happenings in Sri Lanka through the internet,
newspapers, telephone calls and frequent visits. As such, on the 4th
February, using the internet, I was eagerly listening to news about
the Independence Day celebrations through SLBC City FM service (I must
say that this service is a godsend for Sri Lankans like me who are
thirsty for news from our motherland).
When at one point, the program started broadcasting your service,
delivered at Kotahena St Lucia Cathedral, I braced myself with
devotion to listen to our Head of Churche’s holy words on our nation’s
holiest day taking into consideration the current situation in our
motherland. However, sad to say, instead of making me feel pious,
proud and happy, your whole sermon made me sick, ashamed and angry.
I fervently expected you to speak about our successful heroic
struggles to gain freedom, both from the clutches of the cruel western
colonists of the old as well as from the yoke of the vicious inhuman
terrorists of the present day.
Instead, indirectly, but quite obviously, you belittled our heroes of
the past and present. On our freedom day, without a word of blessing
for our frontline soldiers who are sacrificing their lives and limbs
to save the nation, you spoke about a “political solution”. A church
that blessed, in the name of Christianity, the Crusaders and the
Spaniards who murdered hundreds of thousands of people, failed to
bless those who die to save others. You defended the brutal Portugese
by saying that their’s was not an invasion, that they had almost no
impact on the island of ours. Well, the fact is that the Portugese
were the cruellest among our three western invaders, the Dutch and the
British being the other two. You being a scholar, surely cannot claim
that you do not know about the macabre Portugese atrocities. You are
well aware how, under the leadership of Asavedu, the Portugese invaded
the villages around Malwana, corralled all the women to an open area
after raping them, ordered their men to assemble around the venue at
gun point and bayoneted the women, slitting their bellies. Babies in
their hands were thrown up into the air and were caught on the points
of swords. The marauders laughed at the death cries of the babies
saying that they sounded like the cries of chickens. These were the
criminals you whitewashed on our national radio on our national day!
Similarly, now I can understand why you failed to say a single word
about the inhuman atrocities committed by the present day terrorists,
the Tamil Tigers.
Being the supreme leader of our Catholic faith in Sri Lanka, I
expected you to be factual and knowledgeable. However, you were
neither. You exhibited your lack of knowledge (or was it?) of our
history by claiming that it was not the Portugese who brought
Catholicism to Sri Lanka and that Christianity was thriving for
thousands of years prior to the advent of them. Perhaps, you may think
that the fact that a cross was found during excavations in
Anuradhapura among other offerings (such as Roman coins) made by
ancient merchants is proof that Christianity was existing in Sri Lanka
at that time. For your information, may I tell you that the ruins of
Anuradhapura predate Jesus Christ and that the cross was an important
symbol used by people much before Christ was born.
I passionately expected you to bring a message of goodwill and peace,
a message of healing, a message of repentance that would alleviate the
mistrust Sri Lankans of other religions may have against the
Catholics, with or without reason. But instead, you indirectly pointed
a finger of accusation at our Buddhist brothers by saying that they
think the Catholic Church is behind the troubles of Sri Lanka.
My dear Cardinal, let me tell you as a devout self-critical Christian,
that if the majority of Sri Lankans mistrust the Christian Churches in
general and the Catholic Church in particular, it is not a surprise at
all. The reasons are as follows:
· It was Sri Lanka’s Anglican primate who once notoriously said that
the abominable LTTE leader Prabhakaran was a humane person;
· The Bishop of Mannar, Rev Rayappu continually criticised our heroic
forces but never had a bad word about the LTTE. He distorted
information and lied about the situation in Mannar and Madu Church
making it extremely difficult for the Sri Lankan forces to liberate
the areas;
· A Catholic Priest in Jaffna who went on International TV (I watched
it from here) explained why he supported the LTTE: “I was a Tamil
before I became a Catholic”, he brazenly said;
· The Catholic Church never ever said an encouraging word about our
heroic soldiers. On the contrary, many statements from the Church
appeared to sabotage the efforts of bringing the terrorists to book;
· During the last elections, you foolishly appeared on a full page
advertisement on national papers calling all Catholics to support
Ranil Wickramasinghe, a total failure who was against any attempt to
finish off the LTTE terrorism. Ranil who signed the ignominious
“ceasefire” which strengthened the terrorists bringing death to many
more innocents is still openly supported by the Church;
· Christians of all faiths make up less than 10% of Sri Lanka’s
population. However, they still command a disproportionate influence
in all facets of Sri Lankan politics. For example, more than 75% of
Minister’s in Ranil’s cabinet were Christians, mostly Catholics. How
come?
· The majority Buddhists and their kings saved the Catholics from
persecution by the Anglicans during the British rule by allowing them
to settle in nominated villages in the Kandyan kingdom. Now, the
Catholic Church, instead of being grateful to the Buddhists, is trying
to control the affairs of their country. Church leaders, instead of
being model citizens, are seen to be friendlier with the arch enemy of
the nation, the Tamil Tiger terrorists.
Therefore, my dear Cardinal, I beg you to change your ways and those
of the Church you are in charge of by doing everything you can to
pacify people of other faiths and become a friend of them and their
country and nation, rather than a saboteur.
The rest of this letter is addressed to my fellow Sri Lankan
Christians in general and Catholics in particular.
My dear brothers and sisters, I hope this letter opens eyes of both
the Church and the lay Christians. The church is a vehicle we
developed to help us join hands and serve the almighty, an institution
to help keep our faith alive. It should not be a autocratic
establishment that governs us, that dictates to us, that cannot be
questioned and corrected. Our saviour, Jesus Christ did not use a
Church, neither did he anoint anyone or any institution to have
dictatorial powers to say or do whatever the incumbents wanted.
Because of our unyielding faith in God, we have been lagging in
assessing the workings of our Churches. Church is not God. Church is
an institution manned by mere mortals with all the weaknesses that
humans possess. If we confer to the Church the very same level of
uncompromising faith we bestow to God, it can and will cease to be the
institution we expected it to be. In the past, we have made this
mistake and the results were appalling. Few examples are:
· Several Popes, including the current incumbent had to apologize for
serious mistakes on their part. Turning a blind eye to the
extermination of Jews by the Nazis, statements made denying the
holocaust, statements made against Islam are some of the issues about
which they had to apologize;
· Many billions of dollars have been paid as compensation to victims
of sexual harassment by priests, resulting in complete bankruptcy of
some Churches. Most of these crimes had been initially denied by the
Church hierarchy.
It is up to us to decide; whether we become enslaved by an institution
of our own making, which has now turned to be a monster that controls
us or whether we talk to our Church Leaders and bring them back to
sense. After all, God lives in our hearts, not in Churches gone
astray.
Mudali
I admire the letter of Gracien Fernando.
Current Pope himself a NAZI. Then what the hell these Catholics are
talking about?
Further the Christian/catholic church is always agency house for the
western powers and you cannot expect the churches to be patriotic
institutions in Sri Lanka any time.
Fr. Emmanuel who is a resident in Australia claimed publicly the LTTE
is the DIVINE SOLDIERS OF CHRIST. He claimed because POPE throttled
the LTTE against HINDUS/BUDDHISTS. This is not a new warfare of the
church. This is a continuing affair for hundreds of years by criminal
Mafia Vatican.
But from this claim we have to understand the LTTE is a FOREIGN
creation aginst the local politics and to kill politicians who are
against the interest of the countries and Vatican which back LTTE.
LTTE killed all the Tamil Hindu leaders and some Buddhist leaders.
Thosusands of TAMIL HINDUS were perished at the hands of the LTTE.
LTTE's brutality surpassed the PORTUGEUSE criminals in many
incidents.
Some time people may ask all the LTTE are HINDUS. LTTE criminals are
Hindu families and 99% of them are kidnapped child soldiers. These
small guys were indoctrinated in the LTTE camps by many CATHOLICS
against thier own people.
The grownups who joined the LTTE, ran away very fast from the LTTE or
killed by the LTTE. Mahendraraja alias Mahattaya was kiled by LTTE.
Karuna Amman left. Many ran away to foreign lands. Because they
realised the brutality inside the LTTE.I talked to few and they said
nothing is there as LTTE claim outside. Many admitted the frequent
presence of the catholic priests in the LTTE camps.
I think Criminal Vatican tried to create an enclave under the catholic
control to wage war against Hindu India and buddhists of Sri lanka.
Sri Lankan Catholic Church must give an explanation why they are
allied with the criminal LTTE.