| A passionate response from a true Christian
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| President Rajapakse blessing Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith |
( February 28, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Cardinal Malcom Rajith continues to scandalise his fellow Christians with his behaviour as a rabid Sinhala ethno-nationalist, with his support to suppress any international investigation of the massacre of innocent Tamil civilians in their tens of thousands by the Sinhala armed forces in the last stages of their war against the Tamils.
The world did not rush to condemn these war crimes and crimes against humanity until photographic evidence and eye witness accounts of these crimes committed by the state forces started inevitably to leach out of the sites of these crimes and it was no longer possible to deny them. International Human Rights NGOs have been driven to campaign for international investigation of these crimes and the genii is out of the bottle now, and cannot be pushed back. The UNHRC will today be debating this issue with Western nations representatives seeking a long overdue independent investigation and a possible referral to the International Criminal Court.
It is against this background that the notoriously servile Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith is trying to curry favour from the chief perpetrator of these crimes, the vile President Mahinda Rajapakse of Sri Lanka who has the blood of the victims of this genocide on his hands. Cardinal Ranjith must know that murder is foul and mass murder is most foul. But in his anxiety to please his President and the murderous government establishment, he has seriously eroded the vows that he took on his consecration as a Cardinal to follow in the footsteps of Our Lord, even to the point of sacrificing his life in defence of sanctity of life and his faith.
The red colour of the vestments presented to him by the Pope when he took his pledge was to remind him of this commitment. He should use his voice to serve his Lord and to defend truth and justice. I am afraid that he must be deemed a disgrace to his religion and to the high office of a Cardinal of the Church of Jesus Christ.
Might it not be the time now for His Holiness the Pope to say as King Henry II of England once said of his Archbishop of England, Thomas Becket in 1170 AD "What sluggards, what cowards have I brought up in my court, who care nothing for their allegiance to their lord. Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest." Archbishop Becket was a good man then, and stood against the tyranny of a King.
But this Archbishop of Colombo and a Cardinal is a deeply flawed man who pays obeisance to a despotic President.
The Catholic Church should reprimand him and order him to stick to his proper spiritual ministry. If he cannot do it, then he should be recalled to the Vatican where he can do no more damage to the Church and be assigned to one of the Titular Churches there.
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