SRI LANKAN EDUCATOR AND PATRIOT
FATHER FLAVIAN WILATHGAMUWA DIES
By Walter Jayawardhana
Reverend Father Flavian Wilathgamuwa (89), the legendary former Director
of St. Benedict’s College, Kotahena, a close friend of both Bandaranaike
and Senanayaka families who ruled Sri Lanka and a person who played
a leading role against the separatist movement of Sri Lanka by working
hand in hand with the Buddhist clergy in the United States of America
passed away at St. Theresita Hospital on Duarte California, close friends
announced.
“He passed away at 1 a.m. June 11 in the hospital adjacent to
St. Therasita Home Care and Convalescent Center where he lived for the
last many years,” said long time friend and caretaker Vicky Lopez
speaking from Carson, California.
Sri Lankan activist Ananda Markalanda in Los Angeles said , “the
death of Father Wilathgamuwa marks the end of an illustrious career
of a great patriot who fearlessly fought against any separation of Sri
Lanka .” At a time some pro-separatist Sri Lankan priests were
working for the Tamil Tigers he fearlessly represented Sri Lanka and
brought the matters to the Catholic hierarchy, he said.
Born on January 7 1919, Wilathgamuwage Don Maximus was a son of a small
village cultivator of Welivita. Maximus came to Colombo clad in a coat
and a sarong barefooted and accompanied by his father to join one of
the biggest Catholic Colleges in the city. He was rejected for not being
able pay the school fees of fifty Ruppes a month. Ironically, he became
the Director of the same school, St. Benedict’s College many years
later.
Rejected by the then Director of St. Benedict’s College, Rev. Brother
Luke, brother of more famous Father Peterpillai, Maximus later learned
free at the Vidyalankara Piriven at Peliyagoda. Later with the help
of the parish priest of Welivita who collected some money for his expenses
he was admitted to the De La Salle College , Mutwal. From the school
he transferred himself to be educated in the novitiate of the Del La
Salle Brothers and became a teacher, ultimately finding his way to the
St. Benedict’s College, to become its Director .
Before becoming the Director of St.Benedict’s College he also taught
at St. Bede’s College Badulla, St. Anthony’s College, Wattala,
St. Sebastian’s College, Moratuwa and St. Anne’s College,
Kurunegala. He later became the Provincial leader of the teaching sect
administering schools in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India and Burma.
He was the first educator to start the practice of singing the national
anthem to start the day in a school, which he introduced in St. Benedict's
College, which made some sections revolt against it by starting a boycott
campaign of not paying the facilities fees of the school. So, to pay
the salaries of the teachers, Brother Flavian then sought the help of
some of his American friends. He was the first one to invite a Buddhist
monk to be the Chief Guest at a Catholic school function by inviting
Dr.Walpola Rahula to be the Chief Guest at the Annual Prize Day at St.
Benedict’s College. He was the first Christian Brother (He was
then Brother Flavian) to be included as a delegate in the Sri Lanka
delegation at the United Nations in 1958. Later when he became a Claretian
Priest, in the United States, he proceeded to Washington DC, to sit
down and perform a Sathyagraha with a dozen Buddhist monks in front
of the Indian Embassy, when the LTTE killed scores of Buddhist monks
at Aranthalawa.
When he visited Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony accompanied by this
writer (He was my teacher at St. Bede’s College, Badulla) to complain
about some pro-LTTE Catholic priest who was using church facilities
to further the propaganda purposes of the terrorist group, he famously
said, “I am a patriot of Sri Lanka. There is no conflict between
loyalty to my country and loyalty to my church.”
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