{"id":92852,"date":"2019-09-03T21:57:23","date_gmt":"2019-09-04T03:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=92852"},"modified":"2019-09-03T14:53:27","modified_gmt":"2019-09-03T21:53:27","slug":"the-catholic-church-and-inter-religious-reconciliation-in-sri-lanka-between-religions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/09\/03\/the-catholic-church-and-inter-religious-reconciliation-in-sri-lanka-between-religions\/","title":{"rendered":"THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND INTER-RELIGIOUS RECONCILIATION IN SRI LANKA BETWEEN RELIGIONS"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The\nmost impressive picture that people of Sri Lanka and overseas seen in media\nrecently was the paying homage to the tooth relic of the Buddha at the Dalada\nMaligava in Kandy by Archbishop Malcolm Rajith. At that time Mahanayake Thera\nMost Venerable Tibbotuwave Medankara Thero and Chairman of the Association of\nBishops, Cardinal Guatotero Bassitti also joined with him. Inter-religious\nreconciliation or acceptance and harmony with other religions began in the\nCatholic Church with effect from the Second Vatican Council and the\nrecommendations of the council were well received by the catholic church in Sri\nLanka and how to implement the recommendations in the country were discussed by\na national seminar in 1968.  Sri Lanka\nhad a slow process on this matter, but it was broadly accepted at the\ngrassroots level in the country as Buddhist and Catholic people have been\nliving together at regional and urban levels in Sri Lanka since before the\nSecond Vatican Council. Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith has been actively\nparticipating in the process of the acceptance of other religions and several\ncatholic priests actively associated with the inter-religious reconciliation,\nespecially, Rev. Fr. Earnest Porutota and Rev.Fr. Siri Oscar Abeyratne must be\nmentioned at this moment, appreciating their contribution to the process.\nHighest Leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Paul VI visiting Sri Lanka in 1970\nfurther strengthened this process meeting with Buddhist Theros in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nCatholic Church in Sri Lanka had a distance with the government due to\nnationalization of catholic schools by Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike government in\n1963 and the Minister of Education at the nationalization process was Mr.\nBaudeen Mohamod, who expressed that the nationalization was to establish a\nnational education policy to the country, but it was not clearly or\nsuccessfully implemented as expected by people. \nThe catholic church\u2019s stand on the nationalization of religious schools,\nwhich were supported by the government had been criticized by different people\nin the country based on misguided point of views.  However, since the era of St Augustine and St.\nThomas Aquinas, the provision of education to the community as a role of the\nchurch had been identified by the catholic church.  The vicious effects of neglecting to establish\na national education policy and practically not implementing the\ninter-religious reconciliation have reflected by the Bomb attacks of Easter Sunday\nin this year. If there is a national education policy, most probably educating\ncomparative religion to kids in all schools without religious difference, the\nbomb disaster would have avoided and so-called Madrasa schools for a religion\nmight not establish in the country and the religious education would not direct\nto train suicide bombers in schools. \nThis is a debatable opinion but it is my personal view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Archbishop\nMalcolm Ranjith has given the highest respect to Buddhism as a Catholic leader\nand is actively leading catholic people in the country to expand\ninter-religious reconciliation or harmony. \nThe reconciliation has become a controversial process in Sri Lanka based\non the politicization of inter-racial reconciliation by the yahapalana regime as\nthe practical policies of the yahapalana regime reflected unacceptable behaviour\nto common people.  There misconception in\nthe country that the catholic church and catholic people have no respect for\nthe nationality, country and its traditional culture, however, Cardinal Malcolm\nRanjith successfully changed this attitude and two catholic ministers\nsacrificed their lives in the war and many ordinary Sinhala Catholics as\nsoldiers sacrifices lives at the war <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nhistory of the beginning of religions to planet earth indicates that phenomena\nof religions were to help human to live together and despite mythical views of\nsome religions, religions have played a supreme role in human civilization and\nmany critics have not clearly understood this truth.  It also seems that the role of religions has\ngone to extremism intending to destroy the human. In this discussion it is also\nimportant to accept the views expressed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Most\nReverend Justin Welby met with the Mahanayaka Theoros of the Asgiriya and\nMalwatte Chapters of Siyam Nikaya that “extremist elements could be seen\nin every religion and every country and religious leaders have a duty to act\nagainst them.” He also stated that religion is not the source of violent\nemotions.  The Anglican Church also made\ntremendous contribution to Sri Lanka\u2019s post-independence politics, especially\nMr. S.W.R.D Bandaranaike bought wealthy Anglicans to politics in Sri Lanka. Mr.\nMahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s family also strongly associated with the Anglican Church. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

People\nhave no firm idea whether the philosophical messages of religions are true or\nfalse because as the true experience of religious philosophies to individual\nwould be experienced by after the death of an individual and the death destroys\nthe material body of individual and the visibility of individual also will be\ndestroyed at this stage and as Plato stated only humanness would remain for\neach person.  As Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith\ndemonstrated people need to respect all religions. As living human being people\ndon’t exactly know which philosophical views of different religions are\nauthentic and accepting and respecting to each other are the most significant\nbehavior.  As the social philosophy of\nall religions is similar, it is not difficult to working together when\nimplementing the social philosophy of all religions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Extremism\nabout religious ideas and racism have led to terrorism in the world and both\nideas have no truth if it deeply analyses the points given in the concepts or\nideas.  As the Canterbury Archbishop\nstated religion is not the source of violent emotions to kill each other. the\nCatholic church may have realized the fact about the emptiness of the concepts of\nextreme views on religious concepts as Jesus Christ disclosed to the world.  Jesus Christ as the son of God disclosed two\nsignificant roles that were to believe God with devoting and love the neighbor,\nbut in the modern world believers have gone too far beyond the commandments of\nJesus Christ and many mythical practices included opening ways for extremism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Practically,\nextremism is the way for destruction and when a religion or a race attempts to\ngo for extremism it would lead to rejecting the religion by own followers as\nwell as ending the religion killing each other to destroy followers and end the\nreligion.  It can be seen in Middle East\ncountries.  There a considerable trend in\nMiddle East counties to reject Islamic ideas.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncatholic church stands on its feet as Jesus Christ expressed its beginning and\nordinary believers accept that if they follow what Jesus advised nobody can\ndestroy the church and Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith clearly stated that Buddhism in\nSri Lanka is the main part of a log and other regions like branches have\nconnected to the tree and if the Buddhism safeguards in the country all other\nreligions would be supported to exist, otherwise all other religions would be\ndestroyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nconcept of Taweed is accepted by many religions including Christianity, Islam,\nJudaism, Hinduism and many others except Buddhism, which teaches a world of\ngods, in which gods will be punished if they do wrong and gods will lose the status\nof god as a result of wrongdoing. These are concepts of human and\nscientifically they were not proven.  The\nother important point is that to learn a religion it is not necessary to use a\nlanguage used by the originator. It is not true that to learn Buddhism Pali\nlanguage or Christianity Semitic language or Islam Arabic are needed.  To learn a religion, stating learning\nrequirement of specific language is a fabricated story and books of religions\nhave translated to English and they are enough to understand the religion.\n\nIn Sri Lanka major\nissue is many people are blind on the religion that they are devoting without\nunderstanding the messages of other religions. Prof. Santa Ratnayake (Ex\nBuddhist Monk Medagampola Sumana Santa) publicly stated that the role of\nreligion to taking people to convincing grace from the fallen stage (in Sinhala\nhelping to achieve Visuddhiya) and all religions are supposed to play this role.\nTherefore, teaching comparative religion to kids in schools without religious\ndifference would support inter-religious reconciliation or harmony\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS The most impressive picture that people of Sri Lanka and overseas seen in media recently was the paying homage to the tooth relic of the Buddha at the Dalada Maligava in Kandy by Archbishop Malcolm Rajith. At that time Mahanayake Thera Most Venerable Tibbotuwave Medankara Thero and Chairman of the Association of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edward-theophilus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92852\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}