By S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole –

Prof. Ratnajeevan Hoole

I am not putting down prayer or its effectiveness. I endorse both. What I am writing about here is the use of “Let us pray” to escape responsibility, responsibility to form opinions and responsibility to act. It is an escape route freely exploited by crooked Christians to escape justice – for themselves and their friends – and by good Christians to let off and evade forming opinions against their friends caught in crookedness.

I have seen massive fraud by pastors in a Christian College. It is a time to review this, given the charges of unethical conversions against the church. These charges, I assess, are without basis because the converts I see show a new reformed life. The real problem however, is with some – note some – of the pastors who raise cash abroad for the church and then spend it on themselves. Although donors give money for specific items like Christian Education, the money sometimes – even once is all too often – goes to sustain an extravagant life-style by pastors. The saying in Trinco is that people who went about scouring for kaakaa muttais (crows eggs) to eat, are now “reverends” feasting on biriyani.

That crow-egg to biriyani life-style change needs some pilfering to sustain. When they get caught, most of their followers are reluctant to expose their pastors because it would give a bad name for the church. But when they are asked to give account, in one instance the pastors hired the legal team of N.R. Sivendran and Co. from Colombo for Rs. 925,000 with bills still coming in. These rates, well above those recommended by the Bar Association, show the vast powers these pastors have to draw from institutional  funds flowing from donors,  with no one to question them.

Sumanthiran Meeting Press after Win Today

This is not an accusation against only the new church pastors, because as I have noted elsewhere in these pages, Anglican archdeacons (some with questionable academic credentials and even suspensions as theological students) were assigned Rs. 100 lakhs per archdeacon for their cars under Bishop Dhilo Canagasabey. Just like in the free churches, there was no peep from the managers (Standing Committee) supposedly safeguarding church assets.

Thankfully, the new Bishop Dushyantha Rodrigo has stopped the practice saying in my presence that “priests should not go about like company CEOs.” Bishop Rodrigo himself has asked for a van although those who bought luxury cars earlier want him also to go for a luxury car, seemingly wanting to redeem themselves for what they did.

The firm of auditors, Manievannan & Co., Chartered Accountants, has clearly identified fraud at a particular college – for example a) a large cash cheque for Rs. 501,000 issued with a date preceding the date of invoice and encashed by an employee who took it to the bank; b) Over Rs. 700,000 handled as petty cash and with that in hand getting more petty cash which was spent on another missionary institution with no board authorization and no evidence of the money being returned as claimed; c) Large amounts of income accepted as cash and handled as if it is petty cash without banking it, and then spending it with no receipts to show.

Manivannan & co. say “these [transactions]  amount to cash misappropriation which can be termed as fraud by whoever was responsible. This view is based on standard accounting principles that should be expected to be followed by the Chartered Accountants Institute, and any Accounting principles that blatantly violate these [are] termed fraud.”

Yet, with the exception of college President Dr. Sam Thevabalasingham who as far back as in April 2020 asked the matter to be reported to the police, there was general reluctance. This has now been rectified and has been moved from the Police to FCID because of the size of the fraud, but many are shocked and think it is wrong to report “anointed” crooks to the police. After all, the perpetrators go as Reverends and Brothers. One of them threatened “You do not know what will happen if we pray against you.”

The matter is in court. The accused pastors have hired a legal team paying a fortune. For that money the Senior Counsel could have spent a little more effort in his press statement where he garbles the story by blaming his own client from LEADS. What an Advocate at Rs. 925,000 rupees!

When the story broke, the reaction was typical. Forgive, settle it out of court. Love one another etc. There was no word on repentance or the return of the stolen money given by hardworking Christians for a precious cause. Two donors correctly withdrew saying they wanted to see accounts, but a third simply hid behind love, forgiveness and prayer. Would their own givers want their funds used like this, and stolen funds forgiven without a “Sorry”? And those who stole still left in charge without even a sorry?

We are encouraging and growing a goody-goody Christianity. Recently a clergyman gave me a flier on “What is spiritual maturity?” It claimed that a) Spiritual Maturity is when you stop trying to change others, …instead focus on changing  yourself b) Spiritual Maturity is when you accept people as they are. And c) Spiritual Maturity is when you understand everyone is right in their own perspective. So stealing pastors are right. Murdering Generals and Ministers are right in their own perspective and should be left alone.

That is not Christian theology. Good religion must change people for the better, and good religion will teach us what “better” is. Religion is not being nice to our friends. It demands harsh opinions when necessary.

The Diocese of Colombo of the Church of Ceylon seems to be practicing this “comfortable Christianity.” The Diocese has abandoned its Tamil members with a horrible prayerbook translation that calls God unholy. The Anglican Liturgy has taken off appellations like Almighty in “Almighty God,” etc., etc. It was done under the Chairmanship of Rev. Joshua Ratnam who is popular because he is into music and the church does not want to embarrass a popular priest by correcting the liturgy as resolved by the Diocesan Council. As a good lady tried to explain, it is a printer’s error. What? The consistent deletion of “Almighty” in many places is accidental? It shows how far this goody-goody Christianity will go to overlook every fault. As a result, all Tamils have been abandoned to save Ratnam’s reputation and we Tamils need to continue to call God unholy until Bishop Rodrigo finds the time for the next printing of our prayerbook. 

Ratnam came from Trinity College to my class at St. John’s and was placed in the Division for those who had already sat the OLs once – Special V as I recall. After the OL results came in he vanished with a dramatic exit saying his calling is to do drama. Presumably, he did not qualify for Form VI. In Council he made vain arguments that “God without holiness and destruction” can be read as God is Holy depending on how one reads it. To the Sinhalese in Council, he had explained himself! They bought it. The Bishop tried to make excuses saying the Liturgy is not by Ratnam alone but by a Commission. There again, many on the Commission are Sinhalese knowing no Tamil, and many of the Tamils are not competent to the extent of crafting an authorized liturgy. This is why the church has to stress academic matters, and not keep down priests like Rev. Stephen Jebachelvan with a B.Sc. from Peradeniya because that disqualifies him in the eyes of the Church from everything in the Church lest he prove how much better a national university educated person can be as a priest.

Despite ignoring the spiritual well-being of Tamil Anglicans, Bishop Rodrigo at council has made, and continues to make, good statements on human rights. For example in Dec. 2020 the church said,

“We are saddened by the deterioration of democratic norms such as the denial of Islamic burial rights, the massacre at the Mahara Prison, the increasing centralization of power in the Executive and the weakening of Parliament, the large budgetary allocation for defence, questionable appointments to important public positions in Sri Lanka, and the trend towards the undermining of civil administration and increased militarization, where the liberty of citizens and communities and their aspirations are not respected.”

I too voted for it. I felt good about it. However, making us all feel good is all it did. What does it really do? Nothing, I am afraid, because power structures remain, leaving people like Gotabaya Rajapaksa entrenched in power. No one is directly blamed in the goody-goody Church. We only say nice things.

Tuesday 16.03.2021 was the day for our Standing Committee meeting. We were going through the agenda item “Church and Nation.” As inanities that make no difference were discussed, I told the Bishop, “At the UNHRC a resolution is coming up on 22.03.2020. It can make a big difference, taking our killers to justice. May we endorse it and issue a press statement?” There was a long silence.

Then the Bishop hummed and hawed. He said sweet nothings. I specifically asked the Bishop whether he agreed with the UNHCR resolution. Instead of answering he said “People from both sides have died,” and did not want to get involved. However, this resolution is not about people who died. It is about punishing those who killed people extra-judicially on the beaches of Mullivaikal in cold blood. It is about taking to justice our Generals who have killed Tamils and been rewarded with big office. And it is a lot more like reconciliation if one reads it. The Angelus Bell rang, letting the Bishop off the hook. We prayed!

Thereafter, a nationalist, The Rev. Niroshan de Mel, Vicar of St. Michael’s Polwatte, who was the only one besides the Bishop to speak, said the UN is a place where politics is played out, countries have agendas and we should not get involved.  Some truth in that, but it is not an excuse to protect murderers, least by a Church. The caring human rights mask came off the play-safe church. Those who usually propose human rights resolutions had lost their tongue as they played safe not to disagree with the Bishop.

We prayed again as the meeting closed, thereby making the Church lose its chance to be on the right side of history. That Tuesday we needed 24 of the 47 UNHRC votes but were sure only of 20. Today  (19.03.2021) I am told that the votes are there. The Church missed the bus playing safe.

The government it seems is increasingly going mad. There was the COVID burial fiasco. The Burqa ban now is finishing off any hope for the government of more Muslim votes at the UNHCR even as Mahinda Rajapaksa is personally lobbying Bangladesh and the President is telephoning Muslim countries – in vain in my opinion. Today (19.03.2021) in Jaffna a judge threw out the case filed against a Tamil newspaper for displaying V. Prabhakaran’s picture while ignoring Sinhalese newspapers for doing the same. The Police are willing to stooge by filing meaningless cases to be positively noticed by a government that should really pull-up policemen who bring disrepute to our country by filing these mad cases, a prosecute effective prosecutors and lawyers like Hejaaz Hizbullah who helped save the country in 2018 and evidence from children crucial to his vindication is not moving forward because the Supreme Court is taking its own cool time in hearing the children’s case.

A country cannot survive on yes-men and stooges whether in the police or the judiciary, and celebrating murderers in high office. If we will not punish our murderers, unfortunately the UN has to. Let us pray. Let the UN act if we will not.