{"id":246617,"date":"2026-03-30T03:41:57","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T22:11:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=246617"},"modified":"2026-04-05T20:42:51","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T15:12:51","slug":"accountability-of-church-funds-church-corruption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/accountability-of-church-funds-church-corruption\/","title":{"rendered":"Accountability Of Church Funds & Church Corruption"},"content":{"rendered":"

By S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole<\/a> –<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Prof S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole<\/p><\/div>\n

My parents had 7 children. Only the eldest, Rajan, escaped standardization. He read electrical engineering at Peradeniya. I was admitted to the same but shunted off to the Ceylon College of Technology at Katubedde with no degree programme there.<\/p>\n

With a two-income family, my parents lived carefully off one income with vicar\u2019s quarters and my grandfather Canon SS Somasundaram\u2019s milk cows, investing the other in stable companies like Ceylon Tobacco as advised by a parishioner at Christ Church Matale. My brother Rajan and I still get almost a salary from this from our parents\u2019 shares.<\/p>\n

New investment houses sprouted up. In the greed spawned by the UNP regime, companies like\u00a0The Finance Company PLC,\u00a0ETI Finance Ltd,\u00a0Central Investments and Finance PLC,\u00a0Standard Credit Finance Ltd,\u00a0TKS Finance Ltd, and\u00a0Swarnamahal Financial Services PLC etc. returned over 18-24%.<\/p>\n

Before they crashed, we could see southern investers making tons of money. Chelliah Loganathan, was a legendary Sri Lankan Tamil banker and economist, the General Manager and Chief Executive of the Bank of Ceylon (1953\u20131969). He was considered a powerful financier in Sri Lanka’s economic history. In the early 1980s, after his retirement, Loganathan initiated a private, non-profit enterprise aimed at economically developing the neglected North-East region of Sri Lanka. Loganathan settled in Jaffna with the message \u201cpeople in the South are minting with our hard-earned funds. Invest with me and I will develop Jaffna and generate employment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Retiring in Nigeria in Dec. 1981 and going to Canada and the US, I owed my mother for her investment in my M.Sc together with Rajan. I spent most of my income on younger siblings studying in the UK and the US and the rest I gave her, taking her to Loganathan\u2019s at Temple Road (near Rakka Road) to invest. He died on 4 May 1981. His son Ketheeswaran Loganathan took charge of his father’s projects in Jaffna in 1981, which were designed as an intellectual and economic empowerment endeavor \u2013 DEREC (Centre for Development Research, Education and Communication). He was killed by. The LTTE and with him his father\u2019s ideas.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, I am proud of our values. Many talk sweet nothings about our owing Sri Lanka for free education. Nonsense! What I owe is to the CMS and my family.<\/p>\n

Soaked in these values of careful conservation and accounting rules, Rajan Hoole returned in the 1980s after supporting us with his DPhil Oxon degree and objected to\u00a0 <\/span>our church\u00a0 <\/span>asking for foreign donations, saying it would lead to poor and wasteful use of resources and we should raise our own funds, spend them carefully and account for them diligently. The then Vicar\/Archdeacon Sam Horshington allowed Rajan to speak no more after overruling him and the Parish voted for asking for handouts from abroad. Rajan walked out and with that began the habit of asking every visitor from abroad for a contribution towards some parish upkeep work, a lunch or tea party.<\/p>\n

An egregious example of this beggar culture is when the late Rev. Alfred Chinniah\u2019s lawyer-niece visited from London. Warden Thevatheepan approached\u00a0 <\/span>her for a lunch to the parish. He quoted some Rs. 40,000. In the end she was billed over Rs. 125,000, including for his own cooking pot for boiling rice which could have been bought cooked from any boutique for far less. He also charged Rs. 15,000 for using his own coconut scraper and for coconuts that fell off the church coconut trees. The Vicar\/Archdeacon P. Selvan allows his favorites to play out funds from the church like this. The Bishop is aware of this from articles and letters but does nothing. The hostess paid the bill, telling Mrs. Saravanamuttu her mother, \u201cNever again a lunch to St. James\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the handout culture of begging expanded, the worst example was the corruption it spawned. Soon Douglas Devananda through handouts formed a vote-base within the parish. St. James\u2019 had municipal council members who would be reliably elected and these would ensure jobs as road-sweeps, post men, clerical staff in hospital and ayurvedic hospitals, and employment in the ports authority for people from the Parayah caste from Ariyalai, the core of the parish. Devananda made Thevatheepan a postal peon!<\/p>\n

This Douglas patronage somehow left out the people of Nayanmaarkattu which was home to the dreaded Pottu Amman (Shanmugalingam Sivashankar) the long-time head of the Tiger Organization Security Intelligence Service (aka TOSIS) the main intelligence wing of the LTTE from 1988 until May 2009. I recall a stone-throwing war as a cross-caste love-affaire led to the blocking of Kanagaratnam Road with tree trunks & burnt tyres in 2004.<\/p>\n

Anger at the CMS<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Any normal man will be angry with the church for how they have corrupted the church and her schools managed by cheats \u2013 a CMS chair whose higher doctorate degree is from tea plucking, pretending to have an earned doctorate (that is no written thesis examined by subject experts who have read, examined and corrected his thesis. Like-wise, a boys\u2019 school manager with a career in bean counting pretending to have a higher doctoral\u00a0 <\/span>thesis, a lawyer who has no credible practice in courts and no degree like the other two of whom one was\u00a0 <\/span>CMS chair and is accused by her client Jeyaratnam of Holy Trinity Wellawatte of charging for court dates she did not attend, etc. Many CMS principals have no proper accredited degrees.<\/p>\n

When the Archdeacon and Bishop allow the standing committee to entertain late submissions of accounts after the constitutionally scheduled meeting which most do not attend, why is that?<\/p>\n

Could it be for a crooked purpose to hide flaws in the accounts? Can it be sustained that the Bishop himself is straight and not crooked?<\/i><\/p>\n

Tsunami of 26 Dec. 2004<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The most heinous crookedness concerning foreign funds was after the Tsunami struck on 26 Dec. 2024. Funds poured in from sympathetic westerners who had no understanding of how corrupt we are or at best lazy with no intentions of safeguarding donations from the crooks among us. It is our culture not to expose our friends who are brazen crooks. The Bishops are chief among the walls that safeguard the crooks among us.<\/p>\n

The Jaffna Christian Union although using the word Christian, excludes the oldest Christian Church, the Roman Catholic Church established in 1580. Ironically JCU claims to stand up for social justice.<\/p>\n

When the tsunami struck, the JCU was well set up to rip off the funds meant for those affected. Even the wrongfully framed fiduciary mechanisms were in place to defraud us.<\/p>\n

A paid manager, by the name of Mr. Mariathasan was appointed. A non-existent shop out of Jaffna issued receipts on books certifying several millions in groceries where groceries for the destitute were \u201cbought.\u201d Cheques were signed by the treasurer Mr. Hariharan and the Rev. Jameson Gnanaponrajah (then Principal of St. John\u2019s as second signatory.)<\/p>\n

We see Anglican transparency at work. Two people sign a cheque. One signs without even looking at the cheques. Everything is above board. Transparent!<\/p>\n

This is how parish accounts are passed \u2013 at a meeting where the accounts are late and at a late second meeting a few of us barely meeting quorum approve the accounts. The Bishop and the Standing Committee give their approval. When challenged, the Bishop\u2019s lawyer tells the judge that they are always late and the polite judge is reluctant to tell the Bishop off. Or when retired Bishops are gifted free cars violating trust funds, the ignorant diocesan auditor has not even seen the constitutional restriction on trust funds. A parish auditor promised to sign the accounts before he had even seen them.<\/p>\n

I say the church is run by a bunch of crooks. <\/i><\/p>\n

These blank cheque leaves signed by Gnanaponrajah were deposited into an account opened in a bank on the offshore islands. The bank manager would say that three men in cassocks came making him lower his usually instinctive guards in opening the account. It turns out he has no clue as to who they are. Multiple millions of tsunami funds were cleared this way.<\/p>\n

It turns out that Gnanaponrajah, the second signatory on cheques excused himself saying he was so busy as principal that he signed blank cheques and gave them to the treasurer who misused them! Here we see the corrupt church working. <\/i><\/p>\n

Gnanaponrajah was part of the fraud in signing those cheques for grocery purchases, <\/i>or else<\/i><\/b><\/span> he was fiduciarily in cahoots for signing cheques whose genuineness he had not verified. Either way he deserved sacking as a minimum punishment. But no action was taken. After all, he is a priest!<\/i><\/p>\n

Father Jebaratnam Jebamohan who succeeded as treasurer found out the fraud that had taken place and\u00a0 <\/span>wanted the matter taken to the police. As he told me, the entire JCU officialdom opposed it saying it would bring unmitigated shame on the church, the JCU and St. John\u2019s. Nonetheless, he unilaterally filed a police complaint that will bear out what I say. The police investigations moved inexorably until the bull-dog persistence of Jebamohan\u2019s life was cruelly cut short by cancer in the chest area and the JCU Manager Mariathasan committed suicide fearing the consequences. It is believed that the St. James\u2019 priest pretending to be a venerable (a misused title he lost when he ceased to be archdeacon) was referring to Rev. Jebamohan in saying that God as he prayed showed Jebamohan and another person (believed to be me)\u00a0 <\/span>who worked against him and were afflicted by cancer for that. It is a cruel God the Anglicans preach.<\/p>\n

Even God is dragged into the mud by this church and fraudulent archdeacon as a cruel person for striking down those who expose corrupt priests.<\/p>\n

Will the bishop say why the Church took no action against Gnanaponrajah?<\/i><\/p>\n

S.\u00a0 <\/span>Vinoth, Teacher<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Gnanaponrajah\u2019s special episcopal dispensation from punishment does not end there. Mr. Vinoth was a master at St. John\u2019s. He accused Gnanaponrajah of making homosexual advances towards him. When this went on with no ending in sight, I was on the Standing Committee. Vinoth had recorded Gnanaponrajah\u2019s questionable begging overtures to be his friend.\u00a0 <\/span>Bishop Dilo took no action.<\/p>\n

I informed him that the law requires a police report and that I would make a report if the church does not. He promised me he would get a senior District Judge to inquire. Finally, a young woman lawyer inquired. We were not privy to the report.\u00a0 <\/span>At that time, another St. James\u2019 Warden, of the Paraya-caste himself,\u00a0 <\/span>filmed a young low-caste Hindu OL girl bathing at her well. My wife and I both verified the facts. But Fr. Gnanakarunyan, a Paraya Priest, denied it and asked \u2018where is the proof? The offending boys\u2019 family headed by a bank manager came home\u00a0 <\/span>and threatened to become Hindus unless we dropped the matter. It was getting messy.<\/p>\n

In that recording<\/span>, of Gnanaponrajah\u2019s overtures, initially a staff member is also present and the discussion is on school matters. After about the first 2 minutes, the overtures asking Vinoth to be his friend.<\/p>\n

Affter the young woman lawyer gave her report Gnanaponrajah retired prematurely with no explanation but is still a priest and goes to various churches covering for absentee priests for pay and is a \u201cused car salesman\u201d \u2013 a term that, according to the Oxford Learners\u2019 Dictionary \u201cis often used pejoratively to describe someone as dishonest, manipulative, or untrustworthy. They are stereotyped as high-pressure, fast-talking individuals who prioritize closing a sale over honesty.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u00a0 <\/span>works with boy scouts in Mullaitivu. Some old boys were planning to complain to the ministry because in a famous US Supreme Court case, as reported in Time<\/i>, the court allowed the scouts to maintain their ban on gay scout masters (vide Boy Scouts of America Versus Dale 2000<\/i>). In June that year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Boy Scouts had a constitutional right to exclude openly gay people from leadership positions, overturning a New Jersey Supreme Court decision. As recently as 2020 Time <\/i> records testimony from boy scouts about how scout masters abused them<\/span><\/a><\/span>. At St. John\u2019s friends have told me of particular masters who abused them during the annual Jamboree at Old Park. We all knew who they were but the school did nothing. A senior doctor at Save the Children cried as he testified how badly he was abused at Trinity College hostel while the church did nothing.<\/p>\n

In the end, Vinoth lost his job. Gnanaponrajah had done well. Boy scouts are allowed to suffer even in late age. That is JCU-Anglican social justice!<\/i><\/p>\n

Ettappan Rajini Sahayaseelan<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

At that point a decision was taken somewhere to ensure that I am not to be re-elected to the Standing Committee. In Anglican make-believe devolution, at each Area Deanery an election is held to determine who would represent that region. At the pre-council meeting it was decided unanimously that I would represent the Northern Deanery at the Standing Committee.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Rajini Sahayaseelan, Vice Principal of Chundikuli under Sam Ponniah as Vicar, was present and agreed with all other northern reps that I would be the rep. No one else, it was agreed, would stand against me. At the Council, Sahayaseelan did an Ettappan against me. Someone from outside the North proposed her name. She accepted violating her solemn promise to the northern reps. She was elected overwhelmingly by the southern and non-northern vote. There was no devolution to the North.<\/p>\n

Paraphrasing St. Sir Thomas More, More told his assitant Richard Rich who perjured himself to become Attorney General for Wales, that he sold his soul for too little. More famously asks as I do Mrs Sahayaseelan: \u201cYou sold your soul to be a stooge against the Northern Deanery after giving your word \u2013\u00a0 <\/span>merely to be the Bishop\u2019s stooge, breaking your solemn word to the Northern Deanery?”<\/p>\n

There is no shame for dishonesty in this church.<\/i><\/p>\n

The bishop\u2019s trick appears to be to put unqualified people at the top like Bishop Kenneth Fernando\u2019s appointment of his nephew Eksith Fernando which was vetoed by the Supreme Court for lack of 10 years\u2019 teaching experience to be Warden of St. Thomas\u2019. Yet, Ponniah without ten years\u2019 teaching experience was found good enough to be St. John\u2019s principal. With a cowed down, low-caste membership, this works only in Jaffna. Father Steve Jebachelvan with a national university Peradeniya degree is consistently overlooked choosing people like Ponniah from the South married to a Sinhalese who willingly suck up. Jebachelvan has no ten years but is more qualified than Ponniah.<\/p>\n

Sam Ponniah was sent abroad for what I do not know but he has returned without any tertiary degree recorded in the STC webpages to date, and is placed as chaplain at St. Thomas\u2019 with no mention of additional credentials after almost 2 years abroad. He says he earned a BA from the University of the South.\u00a0 <\/span>If he has it, why does STC not flaunt it?<\/p>\n

If he truly has a BA from University off the South,why does STC not proudly list it? Why go for another BA if the Pilimatalawa degree is good? Was he on holiday?<\/i><\/p>\n

Is it because without an accredited Pilimatalawa degree our clergy lack the wherewithal to succeed in tertiary education? There seems a plot to reserve positions for unqualified southern churchmen. Why did the Bishop scream at Fr. Daniel Jeyaruban when he asked for leave at Kaithady to read for his doctorate? Fr. Daniel with a US MA is better qualified than the Bishop and Ponniah. Why did the Bishop get so visibly angry and not politely say no?<\/i><\/p>\n

Is Jealousy a factor? It appears that one qualifies in the Anglican Church by having no qualifications, and that is why the Bishop fired Fr. Daniel! The Bishop runs a GREEN CHURCH!<\/i><\/p>\n

Is there an ongoing plot among the Sinhalese and southern Tamils to ruin Jaffna Tamil roots in education? I increasingly think so.<\/p>\n

R. Vinoth \u2013 One Sacked for Thieving from the YMCA Now Governor of the Church<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Church corruption shows through in a matter involving another Vinoth, R Vinoth,\u00a0 <\/span>an Anglican from St. James\u2019 from depressed caste origins. A handsome Singer Company salesman who was President of the YMCA, he had arranged for an employee to stand guard while he spent time inside his office with two women. It was seen by Andrew Sujeevan<\/span><\/a><\/span> who reported it against the advice of senior Anglicans. Loving justice he had to follow his conscience. At Pilimatalawa Theological College, he would tell on his Dean who distributed exam papers through him. In the end, Andrew was sacked while the Dean after a brief suspension is ensconced in a comfortable job near his home.<\/p>\n

The church punishes only those lower down, not the Bishop\u2019s loved ones.<\/i><\/p>\n

Vinoth was untouched for this offence but was sacked after duplicate receipts were found on his YMCA computer of purchasing a television set and other electrical items from SINGER Sri Lanka according to a YMCA high up who asked me to come as the next President but I could not.<\/p>\n

The corruption continues. The Jaffna YWCA is where the previous office bearers were mostly from the higher caste, the Vellala. During that time they had Rs. 1.4 million in their bank accounts. During the war period, most of the Velala people left Jaffna and mostly all the institutions were dominated by the oppressed caste. The money also disappeared. Today the YWCA bank balance is in 30,000\/- in deficit. The Colombo YWCA has interfered and requested complete audited accounts for the past years.<\/p>\n

Vinoth being clever, soon rebuilt himself. He rose to a position in Gandhi Nilayam, the cultural centre of the Parayas in Ariyalai,\u00a0 <\/span>and to be St. James\u2019 representative to the diocesan council. Under reserved seats for area deaneries, he became a member of the standing committee representing the Northern Deanery \u2013 effectively a Governor of the Church.<\/p>\n

This illiterate Northern Representative questioned at the last AGM of St. James as to why we are receiving small amount of interest on trust funds. We could write to the diocese, requesting not to send small amounts, he averred.<\/p>\n

Gnanaponrajah and his Bosom Friend Narenthiranathan<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. S. Narendranathan a former teacher, hostel master and a VERY good friend of former Pricipal Gnanaponrajah taught Mathematics and Christianity for the middle school boys (usually homosexual prey). When the term exams were over he would request his boys to come home to see the marks. He was living in a rented room in front of Chundikuli Girls\u2019 College during 1990 to1995. Many boys who went to see the marks had homosexual advances made by him. Those who cooperated got good marks.<\/p>\n

When Narendranathan tried to abuse a boy named Wimalarajan of the 1996 batch, Wimalarajan complained to the LTTE Police and for this Narendranathan was arrested in 1993 by the LTTE. Later during the 2000s when a vice principal position was vacant he applied. Since he did not get the position \u2013 naturally so under Thanapalan \u2013\u00a0 <\/span>he left the school and moved to Zahira College Colombo. After Gnanaponrajah took over as the Principal of St. John’s, Narendranathan was brought back to St. John’s\u00a0 <\/span>by his very good friend Gnanaponrajah and made the Prefect of Games, incidetally a position dealing with boys in contact sports. By the time of his retirement, Narendranathan was put in charge of the Jaffna St. John\u2019s Academy.<\/p>\n

Did the school management ask no questions? Strange indeed! St. John\u2019s had become a homosexual paradise! What a reward! <\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

Does the Bishop not know? Surely Archdeacon Selvan does. Or is he selectively exercising forgiveness for a sacked YMCA President who would probably ensure that he would be a yes-man to anything the Bishop wants? As northern deanery rep, he will not represent the North but the southern deaneries and the crookedness from the South in self-preservation.<\/p>\n

The church has to free itself from southern caste-based hegemony, not just serve high-ups and southern power brokers. This is why I ceased to be Anglican.<\/p>\n

Two Sundays ago, Rev. Nesakumar who abuses his expired venerable title still calling himself Venerable, announced from the pulpit that my name has been removed from the Membership roll. What does it mean when anyone can receive? Surely I am not excommunicated as according to chapter 40 of our Constitution, Canons and Rules (2007)<\/i>, \u201cCanon 3<\/b> – The Bishop of the Diocese alone has the power to pronounce the sentence of excommunication on a guilty person and shall only pronounce sentence after the facts of a case have been duly established by inquiry made by or under the Bishop\u2019s direction in accordance with the customs of the Church [\u2026] provided that before such sentence of excommunication is pronounced, the accused person must have received notice of all charges and have had an opportunity of being heard in defence.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is no rule of law under Bishop Dushantha. We can see that this fellow Nesakumar usurps authority not his and orders goods from the Nuffield School signing for the principal. He stands accused of selling church trees to his family and of selling bequests to St. John\u2019 and sending proceeds to Colombo, perhaps to get high office. <\/i><\/p>\n

This is what happens when ill-prepared low-caste people are made church officials. They understand nothing and are sheep led to slaughter. Vinoth cannot tell the Bishop he is wrong when he is wrong!<\/p>\n

Anglican clergy advertisements should read:<\/p>\n

If you are a crook, apply. You are well-qualified to be a stooge for the Bishop.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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