De Pilo Pendet: Reconciliation and the Catholic

Churchs Role in Post-War Sri Lanka

I
by Anupama Ranawana
- on 05/14/2014
have a memory that dates back several
years. It is of a Good Friday Service at my familys parish in Kotte, Sri Lanka and of
the length of time I spent standing outside in overcast weather. A Good Friday service
calls for a special liturgy, sober reflection, and patience. Its a long-standing joke
amongst Catholics that during the Triduum, every lapsed Catholic remembers to
attend Mass just in case. Churches are packed to the rafters, and many have to stand
throughout the longer services. That parish in Kotte is a special one, sandwiched
between two Buddhist temples and within walking distance of Sirikotha (the stronghold
of the UNP, the main political opposition to the present Government). There is no
greater example of the intensity with which politics, religion and multiculturalism meet
in Sri Lanka than to consider ones physical geography during Mass. That particular
Good Friday, I was a troubled sixteen year old, full of questions about my faith, and
fatigued by the length of time I had spent standing outside.
The service was extended from its normal time because it was done in two languages:
Sinhala and English. A prayer or litany would be done in English and then repeated in
Sinhala. Its easy enough to be irritated, and to check out during the non-English
portions. During a Sinhala prayer, I walked away from my spot with the other parish
youth in order to alleviate my impatience. Perhaps it was some grace, perhaps it was
youthful curiosity, but I suddenly decided to start following along with the Sinhala
prayer. I was moving between groups, not all praying at the same time, but gathered
together in some kind of solidarity. It was beautiful, that, and it settled me. There was a
deep beauty in the effort of this church to put us through the wringer of a long, bilingual
service, because it had made us stand together. (Masses are usually done in one
language only, except for this day. Regrettably, there is no Tamil service but, in part,
this has to do with the fact that much of the ethnic Tamil population are English
speaking.) Despite the crowd, the loudspeaker, the dust, and the imminent
thunderstorm, something felt reconciled. I checked my desire to nip across the road for
a chocolate milk from the Cool Spot and stayed for the whole service.
A sacrament from Church to World
Reconciliation and reconciliatory processes play a significant role in Catholic theology.
The individual meeting between penitent and confessor within the confines of the box
allows for, yes, a profound encounter with the Divine, but also a catharsis that
manifests in speaking. Theological students are often told that the sacrament received
is a sacrament of words, that through the speaking act, specifically, we can come to
understand the grace of reconciliation.
In some ways, a version of this idea was deployed in the recent spate of Truth and
Reconciliation Commissions that were held Canadawide. The sessions attempted a
telling of the story of victims of residential school abuse such that through a
necessary wording, a process of healing could begin. Mid-way through a segment of
this process at which I was in attendance, I texted a friend of mine telling her of some
of my immediate reactions. She texted back, Can you imagine how this process
would work back home? A profound question. My friend is Indian and I am Sri
Lankan, but we can come together easily and often in trying to understand the difficult
conflicts and social divisions on the subcontinent. My friend is Lutheran, I am a
Catholic. Her worldview is significantly less sacramental, mine is almost completely so.
I come from a tradition where the word Reconciliation immediately suggests that
individual confession of sin, and of meeting of the individual with the profound Other.
How can we understand, or rather deploy this aspect of confessing to reconcile, of
wearing the garments of penance when attempting to make peace after a sustained
period of conflict? In a long standing war, and in a peace process that has yet to take
off, the healing that has to happen has also taken on complex forms. Arguably at this
time in Sri Lanka, we have entered a certain messiness, where perpetrator and victim
have also entered into a relationship that either mirror each other, or end up taking on
each others forms and vices- a development which, as Robert Schreiter points out
in A Theology of Reconciliation and Peacemaking(2004), is not uncommon in post-
conflict societies.Elizabeth Carmichael, in Practical Theologies for Reconciliation
(2008)also reminds us of a further way in which the process loses clear demarcations
between good and bad; instances in which a person can cross or blur the line
between oppressor and oppressed, or of individuals who begin the process of
reconciliation even during the conflict/event itself. There are those who struggle with a
reconciled heart. How does a process of healing the wounds of a long war in a
multicultural society even begin to deal with the struggle that was, and the struggles
that have been taken on? The central elements of the rite that structure the meeting
between self and Other within Reconciliation can be appropriated as it underlines
dependence. By recognising our dependence upon one another, we make the
garments of repentance almost immediately garments of relationship also.
This is not to argue for the imposition of Catholicity or a religious worldview on the Sri
Lankan peace process, but to argue for the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka to take on a
significant role as a mediatory body in the healing process. As a body that is, and
should always be extra-state the Roman Catholic Church, for whom an understanding
of reconciliation is so deeply entrenched, is ideally posited to be a force for making the
Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) accountable for moving this process along, and for
amplifying the tools needed for reconciliation. Indeed, as this article went to edits,
Catholic news outlets reported that Pope Francis had called on the Church to be the
leaven for reconciliation in Sri Lanka.
A Church in the World
At varying times in history, the Roman Catholic Church has either been with or aside
from the state. In what we can call the post-war era, although it is certainly not a
period devoid of conflict, the Roman Catholic Church has, primarily, decided to place
itself in a position that seemed somewhat ambiguous. Whilst Bishops in the North and
the East have been working from a grassroots level to assist their flock, the position
taken by the Archbishop of Colombo, Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith has proved
problematic to his congregations. In particular, a visit made to Mullikulam, and
reported on Groundviews in 2013, suggested that the Cardinal maintained a
relationship with the defence establishment and not the community in difficulty. While
the Bishop of Mannar, Rayappu Joseph, has maintained a stance that is strongly
critical of the government, Cardinal Ranjith issued a statement in 2012, calling for
Western powers not to interfere with the sovereignty of the Sri Lankan state. This last
mirrors significantly the rhetoric of the GOSL in its response to any criticism in receives
from within or without the country.
In recent times, however, we have seen that changing. This may be a result of the
young papacy of Pope Francis, whose call is explicitly one of social justice and the
protection of the marginalized. On another level, it may also be need to respond to the
growing persecution of non-Buddhist communities by a militant Buddhist groups. Here,
too, the Catholic Church has fallen, for, its reticence to speak out on this topic has
suggested the particular bias of the Church in terms of shying away from association
with evangelical churches. However, with increased attacks on non-Buddhist
populations, including the desecration of a tabernacle in Angulana, the invasion of a
church in Weliweriya, a denial to prisoners to meet with Bishop Joseph during Lenten
services, and a condition of social suffering that impossible not to respond to, we are
seeing a much needed fight back from the Catholic Church. In December 2013, the
Catholic Bishops Conference of Sri Lanka issued a Pastoral Statement on
Reconciliation and Rebuilding, the first such document of its length and constituency
issued since 1984s pastoral letter on rebuilding a nation. The statement cites heavily
from Gaudium et Spes,the Pastoral Constitution of Vatican II, a document that, very
purposefully and, arguably, quite radically, positioned the Church to bring itself into the
World. Indeed, the legacy of the council of Vatican II is simply this, it opened the
Roman Catholic Church up more than it had ever been before. Importantly, however,
the Sri Lankan Catholic Bishops Pastoral Statement also, building off of Catholic
Social Teaching, and reflecting the call from Sri Lankan civil society, makes a strong
call for decentralisation of power in the island, and for the drafting of a new
constitution. These are important and powerful ideas to push for in a country where the
intense monopolisation of power by a dynastic family, and the unbridled Sinhalization
of the North and East has pushed the possibility of reconciliation and rebuilding back
at least a few years. It is important to point out here, that while the conversation at the
top, in terms of the Sri Lankan episcopate has been quite fragmented, any encounter
one has with more rural or destitute areas will strongly witness to the tireless work of
the women religious and the ordained male clergy, standing side by side in their
mission to the poor. Look at pictures from different civil society rallies, and you are
sure to see more than a few nuns marching alongside other protestors. The
groundswell and capacity for the Catholic Church to take a significant role in calling for
and actively leading the reconciliation process already exists, what it requires is unified
and continued momentum from the top, as well as a profound articulation of
appropriating the liberating principle of Reconciliation itself as a response to the
gaping, and ever-widening wounds the island carries.
Akin to many Churches mired in the messy politics of a country that is developing or
in the Global South, or working its way from a colonial past, the identity of the Roman
Catholic Church in Sri Lanka should, arguably, be defined by its ability to respond to
the voices of those who are poor and oppressed in body, mind and spirit. Where war,
poverty, desperation and abuse are rampant, a Church stands face to face with
systemic injustice and is called to battle these forces and to reform and revolutionize
these structures of inequality. In Latin America, the rise of the current of Liberation
Theology is an excellent example; in India, we see the struggles of the Dalit
Christians. In Sri Lanka, Fr Tissa Balasuriya was forced into a confrontation with the
Vatican because of a document he wrote that was, in essence, a response to the
difficulties of the social situation that he saw in the island. The Catholic Church
struggles with revolutionary voices in its hesitance to be identified with Marxist
materialism and violent struggle. Yet, some form of non-physical violence, of action, is
necessary now in finding the places where healing can grow, in attacking the sins
committed in the war and truly transforming Sri Lanka.