On Father Jeyanesan, a conversation with my friend

I concluded: “This is the challenge of our times especially in Sri Lanka. We have to work towards national reconciliation and help bring about peace and amity among all the people Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and others.”
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by Victor Karunairajan

(June 11, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian)The other day a good friend asked me if I had the chance to meet the Rev Sellathurai Jeyanesan what kind of conversation or discussion would most likely ensue between the two of us. At first, I thought he had meant this as a light-hearted query but he insisted on my reactions and appeared quite serious about it.

After thinking for a while, I said my first question invariably would be:

“Now that you are back in Sri Lanka after visiting your family in Canada and the USA for four months or so and raising whatever funds you could muster at which you are a master with two decades of experience, why not submit your accounts with the Jaffna Diocese and begin a clean slate with your church?”

“Are you serious? You think he will tolerate such a question!” my friend reacted in a flash.

“Tolerate or not the question of Rev Jeyanesan’s integrity and his claim to head a church depend very much on his stewardship and in this, he has proved to be utterly bankrupt.”
My friend asked me whether I had read his officious statement in the CACM website and how he has chosen to state his deputies who looked after his affairs, whatever they be during his four months absence are honest and trustworthy and their integrity spotless?
I said I did and asked him whether he saw a comment on it by a reader – one and only one, must be his Man Friday – saying he has made a good statement and then added to it, ‘Victor Karunairajan is looking for him.’

“I loved that reference. Of course I am not looking for him but this is a good tribute to a proactive journalist. I do get some nasty mail that generally indicate or reflect the characteristics of the people who write them. I note their standards from spelling to perceptions are downright shallow and haywire and their reactions bloated with hatred, anger and even threats. And of course their communication skill is appalling.”

I continued: “Father Jeyanesan should clean up his stables of all the venomous elements, the fraudsters and rogues and also the hatred, anger and intolerance with which CACM was launched even the Mad Hatter kodumbavi* fellows. And he has no right to use such names as the American Ceylon Mission and The Morning Star. Is he so pathetically bereft and desolate of ideas?”

“But then,” my friend said, “Rev Jeyanesan has not made a habit of submitting accounts for years; that’s his nature. When he was in the Wanni some account books were cast into the fire one night and there was that mysterious fire that destroyed a mission jeep.”
“Yes, yes, yes, I am aware of these and a lot more. There was the Paranthan YMCA scandal, again over the question of accounts and the tragic death of a nice guy who asked too many questions believed killed by unknown assailants. These were all bad for an organization run by the church and Father Jeyanesan was the head of the YMCA at that time.”

“What was the primary cause of the CACM breakaway,” asked my friend.

“I have to answer this at length,” I warned him but he was keen to hear me.

“Firstly, Father Jeyanesan has to account for millions of rupees. As the bishop of the JDCSI he would have managed that some how or other. Our people are too tame and those in authority literally have their way. Having failed in his bid to become the bishop, he was caught in dire straits. He has to satisfy the donors. So he made plans to set up a church more as if it was the American Ceylon Mission itself and appeared to have won the sympathy of some people with the United Church of Christ in the US.

Secondly, folks there were mischievously misrepresented about the Rev Dr Daniel Thiagarajah and were even presented as a usurper such is the skill of Father Jeyanesan to charm people, a characteristic often used by fraudsters of all kinds to great advantage for themselves. Letters written to Bishop Thiagarajah by Dr Cally Rogers-Witte, the executive head of the Wider Churches Ministries of the United Church of Christ, the successors to the United Church Board for World Missions evidenced the upper hand Father Jeyanesan had at that time with this mission board.

“Thirdly, he had the enthusiastic support of the opportunistic South Indian hobo, the Rev Dr Dhyan Chand Carr for whom the single malt whiskey is the drink of primary choice and an ace trouble maker. Are we not aware of the havoc he created in Sri Lanka and even bit the hands that helped him when Bishop Subramanian Jebanesan was the head of the JDCSI?

“And finally, for Father Jeyanesan, our people were ideal to exploit because among us we have this tendency to consider crooks as heroes and ‘vedduk kotthu’ – ‘cut and hoe’ is acceptable as a legitimate form of earning whatever the means may be.

“What is this story about Rev Jeyanesan trying to bribe the General Secretary of the Church of South India to get the bishopric for himself?”

“This is pretty amusing, a real Kavundamani-Senthil story. He did think it was possible and that was the kind of value he attached to this sacred office. He packed himself a couple of bottles of spirits, a cologne of some kind, a box of chocolates and US dollars 500.00 and was confident the bishop was already in his pocket. He had a totally wrong idea of the lady, a daughter of a well known bishop and her honour-bound integrity.”
“You make very strong statements,” my friend reacted and asked me whether some of them were not defamatory.”

“If what I say is false, then there is a problem. As long as my information is correct and is expressed in the larger interests of the community, I have as a journalist an obligation to alert the public.”

I added: “How I would love someone taking me to court on a charge of defamation! I will then have an excellent public forum and what better avenue than that to fight my cause?”
“Now, will you meet Rev Jeyanesan, like the guy who said you are looking for him?”
“I wouldn’t waste my precious time meeting someone who has caused so much pain to many who and their folks have been for generations members of the JDCSI. His church has no canon or creed and many of his assistants are men of violence and some are like his immediate deputy, Father Jeyakumar who is a proven swindler and his morals have been established as unbefitting a priest; Father Jeyanesan is no better.

“Furthermore, if Father Jeyanesan purges his own church, he will have to be the first to go because as long as he fails to submit accounts on funds collected in the name of the JDCSI and that for well over ten years, he is a fraudster too. If he goes or once he goes, what is there left of the CACM?”

“What do you feel about the JDCSI,” my friend asked me in conclusion.

“Thank God, the church has been shaken and purged. God has given it a powerful purgative and found a good physician to lead this church. It is no surprise that the church has moved out of its ethnic northern doldrums and become a national church reflecting the fine elements of the Church of South India. It is a matter of great pride that the JDCSI even has a Sinhalese congregation in the south. It has become a national church virtually overnight under its new leadership.”

“Do you have a final comment,” my friend asked me.

“Perhaps I can direct that to all the fence-sitters and we have whole hordes of them. Why have they not got the guts to demand that Father Jeyanesan comes clean with the millions he has amassed in the US, Europe and Israel and even the tiny bits of dimes and nickels he collected recently from a Toronto Tamil Christian Diaspora, some of them from the displaced power clan of the JDCSI? Are crooks still considered heroes among us? This is also the time for other churches in Sri Lanka to give their total support to the JDCSI and Bishop Daniel Thiagarajah especially because he comes from a church to which church union is sacrosanct.”

I concluded: “This is the challenge of our times especially in Sri Lanka. We have to work towards national reconciliation and help bring about peace and amity among all the people Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and others.”

Note: Kodumbavi is a pagan ritual practiced to bring a downpour of rain with the participants wailing in curse the devil represented for such a rite by a doll which is finally cremated. Such a demonstration was held by the CACM headed by three of their priests against the Moderator of the Church of South India and Bishop Daniel Thiagarajah when he was appointed the bishop.
- Sri Lanka Guardian