To the outsider Sri Lanka seems like a country at war with itself. Yet paradoxically, away from the areas of conflict in the Jaffna Peninsula and the north and east of the country, the island is apparently remarkably peaceful and, despite omnipresent military checkpoints, people are open and friendly. But even this is deceptive, as continuing political violence and assassination attempts on the president and other political leaders during election campaigns have shown. Neither the Sri Lankan government nor the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam shows any signs of compromise, despite intermittent efforts by various parties to bring about a truce and eventual peace. The roots of the civil conflict are incorrectly assumed by outsiders to be between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils, who are thought to have been brought into Sri Lanka from south India by the British colonial authorities to work the tea plantations. But the reality is much more complex, and Tamils have been on the island for over a thousand years.
Civilization in Sri Lanka goes back a long way. The Sinhalese people came to Ceylon from the northern or north-eastern shores of the Bay of Bengal, four to five centuries before the Christian era. Originally, they only occupied the Jaffna Peninsula and the northern plain of the island, and they were well established in their capital Anuradhapura in the central north, when Buddhism first came from India in 307BC. A large majority of Sinhalese are Buddhist.
The word ‘Tamil’ is the generic term for the Dravidian peoples of south India. While there had been both constant trade and warfare between the Sinhalese kingdom in Ceylon and Tamil south India for hundreds of years, in 992–93AD a major Tamil invasion occurred which led to the eventual abandonment of Anuradhapura and the retreat of the Sinhalese kingdom, first to Polonnaruwa, and then finally to Kandy in the central highlands, which nowadays is the Buddhist centre of the island. By the sixteenth century the island was divided into seven separate kingdoms. In 1505 the Portuguese arrived and rapaciously dominated much of the western coast of the island for a hundred years. This is when the first Christian conversions occurred. From the beginning of the seventeenth century the Dutch were the predominant colonial power although, like the Portuguese, they never really penetrated far into the centre of the island. In 1795–6 the British defeated the Dutch and took over control of the coastal areas. By devious means they finally captured the kingdom of Kandy, and in 1815 brought the whole island under their colonial control. Sri Lanka attained independence in 1948.
In 1999 the population of Sri Lanka was 18.3 million. Seventy-four per cent were Sinhalese, 13 per cent Sri Lankan Tamils, 5 per cent Indian Tamils brought in by the British for the tea plantations, with mixed-race Burghers making up most of the rest of the population. In terms of religion, the Buddhists are the largest group with 69 per cent, Hindus comprise 15 per cent, Muslims make up 7.5 per cent and Christians 7 per cent. The vast majority of the Christians are Catholics, who number 1.2 million, people of both Sinhalese and Tamil background having converted to Catholicism. While tolerant of all other religions, local Catholic converts were persecuted under the Dutch, and then began to prosper again under the British. As in India, the Church emphasised education. A very high percentage of the clergy are indigenous.
Numerically, the largest religious order of priests in the country are the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI), and this is the congregation to which Father Tissa Balasuriya belongs. Founded in 1816 in France as a missionary and educational order, the Oblates came to Sri Lanka in 1847 and have had a considerable influence on local Catholicism.
In many ways the current civil struggle in Sri Lanka is fundamentally about democratic pluralism and the ability of different cultures and religions to live together in peace. Throughout his long life Father Tissa Balasuriya has stood for pluralism, tolerance and social justice, and has worked to strengthen contacts between people of different beliefs and values. ‘Father Bala’, as he is popularly known, has supported the poor and oppressed against the powerful, and more recently he has been very critical of the way Western multinational corporations exploit developing countries like Sri Lanka. As well as calling for dialogue within his own society, he also works in a practical way for refugees from the ongoing civil war in the north of the island.
At the deepest level, Tissa Balasuriya has struggled to integrate his Catholic faith with Sri Lankan culture. For much of his life he has questioned the old missionary approach – salvation through conversion and conformity to a form of Catholicism that is essentially European and Roman. In other words, Catholicism expressed as a form of ecclesiastical colonialism. This dispute goes back to the days of Vatican II, when Balasuriya and a number of others, including Oblate Father Michael Rodrigo, who studied with him in Rome, tried to get the Church to be more open to the world and to adopt the fundamental change of attitude that was implicit in the whole approach of the Council. Rodrigo was murdered in 1988 while celebrating mass in a remote area because of his opposition to those who exploited the rural poor. Other Sri Lankan Catholics have been working along similar lines. The Jesuit Aloysius Pieris has worked with base communities that include members of all religious faiths who are experiencing oppression and poverty. He says that ‘spirituality is not the practical conclusion of theology, but radical involvement with the poor and the oppressed, and [it is this which] creates theology’. Another group that works along similar lines is the Satoyada community in Kandy led by another Jesuit, Father Paul Casperz.
However, many of the bishops, including the first indigenous Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Thomas Cooray, found it hard to adjust to the conciliar reforms and to a non-Roman approach to theology and ministry. The Church establishment has remained essentially conservative and is close to right-wing elements in the country, including the military. It is this conflict about missionary method and cultural integration that is at the core of the attack that Bishop Malcolm Ranjith and others launched on Balasuriya in 1992. This was quickly taken up by the CDF, which in the second half of the 1990s had become increasingly concerned with ‘Asian theology’. Intolerant of pluralism, the CDF views Balasuriya as a ‘relativist’ who equates all religions and philosophies and who reduces Christian spirituality to ‘social action’.
But Balasuriya has been involved with the issue of cultural integration for a long time. In his book Jesus Christ and Human Liberation he describes the image of Jesus traditionally presented by Western missionaries to Asian converts. There Jesus is someone sent by God to save humankind from the effects of original and personal sin. He became man in obedience to God in order to make reparation for our sins through his death. His act of obedience in embracing the human condition and dying on the cross redeemed all humanity. Salvation for the individual was mediated by the Church. There was no other form of salvation. Thus the great religious traditions, such as Buddhism, were insufficient for salvation.
The very process of conversion meant that new converts were to a considerable extent cut off from their culture and forced to adopt a religion that was Roman and Western. In the traditional missionary approach, the emphasis on the personal unworthiness of the convert and obedience was important. This was precisely what the colonial power demanded in the civil sphere from the ‘natives’. There was no conscious collusion, of course, but both Church and state were working from the same set of presuppositions. However, as Balasuriya points out, the Gospels could have been used to present a very different image of Jesus: one who cared for the poor and oppressed and worked for human liberation. But the Jesus presented to Asian converts was passive and obedient. In contrast, Balasuriya presents a Jesus who is active and liberating, a fully ‘conscious human being capable of suffering, being angry and even tempted’.
The missionaries also presented a ‘watered-down’ image of Mary. In place of the strong woman concerned with social justice and liberation described in the first chapter of St Luke’s Gospel (Luke 1:51–53), Mary was presented as passive, domesticated and obedient. Sri Lankan Catholicism, like much of the popular Catholicism of Asia, is deeply devotional, and Mary and the saints play an important ‘mediating’ role. The social radicalism of the Mary who praises God for showing ‘the strength of his arm’ and ‘scattering the proud-hearted’, for bringing ‘down the powerful from their thrones’ and lifting up the lowly, for filling ‘the hungry with good things’ and sending ‘the rich away empty’, is replaced by the passive Blessed Virgin, the ‘purest of creatures’, the Mary who is both ‘sweet mother [and] sweet maid’. In Mary and Human Liberation Balasuriya’s describes her as ‘a loving mother and sister of all; a woman among women, a human being among us; one who faced the difficulties of being united to Jesus for a better humanity’.
There is a sense in which Balasuriya’s challenge is as much politico-social as it is theological. As such it is seen as deeply subversive by many in the Church establishment, especially in a country that is as deeply divided as Sri Lanka.
The CDF process against Balasuriya led eventually in 1998 to the radical and draconian penalty of excommunication. He is the only theologian to have been so drastically treated since Vatican II. The only other well-known example of excommunication of a theologian in the twentieth century is that of the Italian priest Ernesto Buonaiuti, who was accused of ‘modernism’. Yet Balasuriya’s consistency and strength of character, as well as worldwide public pressure, forced the CDF to compromise and abandon the excommunication a year later. In the process it has made Balasuriya one of the best-known priests and theologians in the world. He lives and works at the Centre for Society and Religion (CSR), a four-storey building taking up one side of a large compound in inner-city Colombo, which also houses a very busy Catholic church and shrine, and a residence for the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
When you first meet ‘Father Bala’ at home, he seems serious and almost withdrawn. But very quickly an exquisite courtesy emerges and a ready smile takes over, which is often highlighted by an impish laugh. He is generous with his time and open and provocative in expressing his views. At seventy-six you would expect him to be slowing up, but he seems to be going faster now than ever before and there seems to be no end to his energy and creativity. He is very much a man of the people: when travelling he either walks or catches the bus. His cloister is both the world and his own culture, in which he is very much at home. No doubt it reflects his family background in the local village. Balasuriya begins by telling something of his background and training.
I was born on 29 August 1924 in the village of Kahatagasdigiliya, close to the ancient capital of Anuradhapura. Catholicism runs in my family. My father was in the medical profession, with two years’ medical training. He was a medical officer in charge of dispensaries, mainly in rural areas, and between 1924 and 1930 worked in the North Central Province. Throughout his life my father was also a coconut planter, and on his retirement from government service he set up a desiccated-coconut mill in his home village of Andiambalama, north of Colombo. After my excommunication, it was on this farm, bequeathed to me by my parents, that we began a home for disadvantaged children.
My father was later transferred to the village of Dankotuwa, near the central west coast, and I was educated there for a short time in a Sinhalese school. Then I went to the Catholic Marystella College in Negombo, just north of Colombo, as a boarder at the age of six and a half, and was there for eight years with the Marist Brothers. In 1938 I gained the Junior School Certificate and then went to St Patrick’s College, Jaffna, which was run by the Oblate Fathers. There I lived in a Tamil environment, passing the matriculation in 1940. I then moved to St Joseph’s College in Colombo.
From there I went to the University of Ceylon where, from 1942 to 1945, I studied economics and political science. While I was at university I read the lives of the saints and was a member of the Legion of Mary. Founded in 1921 in Ireland, the Legion of Mary has a strong Marian emphasis in its spirituality, but it encouraged apostolic activity as a way of giving expression to spiritual commitment. So it was a kind of combination of social and political action with theological and religious convictions that later led me to move in the direction I did as a priest.
After university I went to the Oblate novitiate, I think because I experienced a kind of inner call that was indefinable, yet irresistible. For me the priesthood was also a way of serving society and of bearing witness to Jesus Christ. I had been part of the Catholic Student Movement at university, which in those days was more open and searching, even if still rather conservative. So for me the priesthood was a combination of a desire for both spirituality and social change. When I decided to enter the seminary, I went to see the French Archbishop of Colombo, who was an Oblate of Mary Immaculate – he was the last foreign archbishop – and I said I wanted to be a priest but that I had not yet decided which group to join, either the Oblates or the diocesan clergy. He said: ‘Oh well, it doesn’t really matter. Whether you join the Oblates or the diocese, you’ll still be under me!’
The notion of a French archbishop brings up the question of whether Catholicism is viewed as a ‘foreign’ religion in Sri Lanka. In the past, Catholicism was seen as such, but that is not so much the case now because the Church has changed the liturgy into the local languages, and we have tried to adapt our music and even our thinking to Sri Lankan culture. The Portuguese refused to ordain locals, so most of the clergy and all of the bishops were foreign. The Oblates came to Sri Lanka in 1847, and from that time onwards we have ordained Sri Lankan priests. However, it was not until about 1940 that the first indigenous bishops were appointed; the first Sri Lankan archbishop came in 1947 with independence. Now all the bishops are local. But, as my own experience has shown, we are still a long way from solving the theological problem of integrating Catholicism into our culture.
Looking back on why I joined the Oblates, I think it was the vow of poverty I took as a member of a religious order which made the real difference. A vow of poverty implied that I had to do something practical for the Sri Lankan poor. I also knew several Oblate priests and they attracted me. I did my novitiate and one year of philosophy in Colombo, and then went to the Gregorian University in Rome where I did two more years of philosophy and four years of theology between 1947 and 1953. In those difficult years after World War II we never went home and had to study in Latin and speak Italian and French. I was probably in Rome at the same time as Cardinal Josef Ratzinger and Father Hans Küng. After ordination in Rome, I returned to Sri Lanka in 1953.
Father Peter Pillai, who had already influenced me a lot, met me at the ship and took me back to St Joseph’s College where he was rector. He had been concerned with social justice and workers’ rights for quite some time. He was an intellectual who had studied mathematics and physics in Cambridge, had read G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, and was influenced to some extent by Joseph Cardijn and his Young Christian Workers’ movement. Chesterton and Belloc were English Catholics who, while right-wing and conservative, encouraged Catholic engagement with culture and society. Father, later Cardinal, Joseph Cardijn was a Belgian priest who, in the 1920s and 1930s, encouraged Catholic action and helped young lay Catholics to integrate their work in the world with their faith. He founded the Young Christian Workers, or ‘Jocists’ as they are sometimes called, a movement which developed a spirituality of reflective action that has had considerable influence on modern Catholicism. Pillai had also studied in Rome, and had come under the influence of the social thinking of popes Leo XIII and Pius XI. European trends towards socialism influenced him, although he was very unfavourable to anything that smacked of communism. He had studied Hinduism, and the work of Gandhi and the freedom movements of Asia and Africa had impacted on him.
I taught with Pillai at St Joseph’s College, and in 1954 we began to develop what was to become Aquinas University College, an institution similar to an American liberal arts college. I was registrar there and taught economics and theology. In those days we only had the University of Ceylon, and we developed Aquinas as an alternative for those who, because of restricted numbers, could not get into the university, or who could not afford it. At Aquinas we had afternoon and evening classes for those who were working. However, there was strong opposition among many of the elite to the idea of a private Catholic college. Nevertheless, we attracted large numbers of students, many of whom were later to become very influential in Sri Lankan society.
Before going to Rome I had been influenced by the movement for independence from the British. We did not have to struggle for freedom as the Indians did. We had universal suffrage from 1931 onwards and were granted independence in 1947. But the tragedy was that we did not have to struggle and never developed political leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. As result of their own experiences fighting for independence, both these men were far more committed to a struggle for liberation and the service of the people than our Sri Lankan political leaders. At the same time, the leadership of the Catholic Church was very insecure about independence and the democratic process. The bishops were concerned as to how the Buddhist majority would treat Christians.
So I developed in the context of a forward-looking Catholicism, combined with social radicalism and an openness to other thinking and religions. Sri Lanka today sees itself as a ‘socialist’ country, a view very much influenced by a parallel secular group to us socially involved Catholics. This secular group was formed in Britain by the Marxism of the 1930s and the thought of Harold Laski, the Fabian Socialists and the 1917 Russian Revolution. When they returned to Sri Lanka they founded the socialist and Marxist parties, and had a major influence on the independence movement. After 1947 this same group began the transformation of our society in a socialist direction through the parliamentary system, in the process establishing social services and free education. In 1950s and 1960s non-communist socialist thinking influenced most Sri Lankan intellectuals. It was a period when the solution to the country’s problems seemed to be through state enterprise. In 1972, when we became a republic, the word ‘socialism’ was brought into the constitution. After 1977 right-wing politicians opted for liberal capitalism, and opened the country up to the transnational corporations. But they kept the word ‘socialism’ in the constitution.
From 1962 to 1964, I was abroad. This was the time of Vatican II. Between 1962 and 1963 I studied at the Agricultural Economics Institute at Oxford, headed by the Australian, Colin Clark. Since Father Pillai wanted me to take over Aquinas College, a further secular degree from Oxford would have been useful. However, I quickly realised I did not agree with the capitalistic and Western economics that underpinned Clark’s approach. Also, I knew I was not really interested in getting a degree. I wanted instead to look critically at the Thomism in the philosophy and theology in which I had been trained, in order to try to find a new way of viewing life. I had a deep concern for social justice and the values of socialism because I realised that this was the trend that would really help poor people. I also came to see that the whole academic system was basically in favour of those who dominated society. After Oxford, I went to the Institut Catholique in Paris between 1963 and 1964.
Even when I was a student in Rome in the early 1950s I could not quite accept the Western missionary approach. The notion underlying this was that through increasing numbers of conversions, the other great religions like Buddhism would slowly disappear and that Christianity would be triumphant. However, when I returned to Sri Lanka in 1953 the Church was on the defensive. I saw that there was a dissonance between the Western-Aristotelian-Thomistic-Roman synthesis, and the aspirations of Asian people for liberation. In 1961 the Sri Lankan government nationalised the private schools, including 2500 Catholic schools. That showed us how little sympathy there was among ordinary people for these schools. Many people felt that they had been used for proselytism, as well as giving the Catholic community a social advantage. The Church establishment increasingly found itself allied with the political right wing, and in opposition to the more socialistic approach. So, as a result, a group of us Catholics began to rethink our whole approach to theology and social action.
By 1964 I was writing in favour of openness to other religions. In a sense, I and others had already moved beyond Vatican II, although that was the source of much of our hope. By the time the Council finished in 1965 I was rector of Aquinas College, where we held seminars in English and Sinhalese to introduce the ideas of the Council to the local Church and to change the mind-set of Catholics. In 1968–69 there was a National Synod of the Catholic Church. What became clear then was that the main leadership of the Church was not prepared for change of any sort, neither in terms of openness to other religions, nor in a willingness to take a more socialistic approach. These people were formed in the old mind-set that the primary function of the Catholic Church was ‘to save souls’, and that social action neglected Church ministry and could involve the abandonment of spiritual values.
By the late 1960s it was clear that serious change was not going to come from within the Church, despite the fact that a few Church leaders such as Bishop Leo Nanayakkara, of Kandy, and my Oblate colleague, Father Michael Rodrigo, were involved in social change. So some of us decided to move outside present Church structures: I resigned from Aquinas College and went out to live alone in a village area in order to see what would happen, and then to work out which direction I should take. Bishop Leo left Kandy for the newly established and poor, remote diocese of Badulla in the south of the island. Slowly the idea of a centre for research and action in social justice grew in our minds, and in July 1971 we decided to form the Centre for Society and Religion in Colombo.
At that time most bishops neither approved nor disapproved of the centre, so long as we did not challenge the system too publicly. My religious congregation permitted the situation to develop, so long as they were not held responsible if the venture failed. From 1969 to 1979 I was chaplain to the Catholic Students Federation and chaplain for Asia for the International Movement of Catholic Students. That gave me some other work and involvement abroad, putting me in contact with people from different parts of Asia and giving me a broad knowledge of what was happening in the Asian Church.
The origin of my problems with Church authority is rooted in the fundamental theological issue of salvation. Many Christians in Asia are increasingly unable to think of salvation exclusively in terms of the Church, or as only mediated by Jesus Christ. We have come to realise that such a view would imply that the vast majority of the people of Asia were not saved. The point has slowly dawned on us that this is not acceptable. Vatican II pointed to some openings concerning the salvation of non-Christians, but even in the 1970s the leadership of the Church in Rome was retreating into itself. The more I studied the issue of salvation, the more I was impressed with the serious inadequacy of the Church’s doctrinal thinking. It gradually became clear to me that what we have presented for a thousand years as dogma and doctrine is not really from Jesus Christ. Certainly Catholicism and Vatican II have clearly said that the Church is not the sole means of salvation. The real problem is that the Church usually denies this in practice and acts as though you need to be baptised in order to be saved. The whole missionary thrust through sermons and teaching is that, even today, salvation is to be found only in the Church and in Jesus Christ. Thus we are fitting God and people into our own categories and perspectives.
As far back as the late 1970s questions were raised about my books Jesus Christ and Human Liberation [1976] and The Eucharist and Human Liberation [1977]. But my real problems with Church authority began with my book Mary and Human Liberation, published in June 1990. This book was written during a period of insurrection in Sri Lanka, when a lot of people were killed, including my friend and colleague, Father Michael Rodrigo. The book centred on the role of Marian devotion. But this inevitably touches on a number of fundamental doctrines, including that of original sin.
By 1990 I had realised that the idea of original sin was basic to the concept of salvation, and that once you posit the idea that original sin infects everyone, some form of universal redemption is required. This was interpreted by medieval theologians such as St Anselm and others in the past, to mean that there had to be a divine redeemer. If there is a divine redeemer, the theory of merit and grace follows, with the Church as the medium for this grace. Once you enter into this complex of ideas, you are dealing with the substance of Christian dogma as traditionally presented, and you are dealing with one of the central underpinnings for the justification of missionary work. The Vatican saw this clearly. Their critique of my writing is not so much about the role of Mary as about my treatment of these fundamental doctrines. But since Mary is important for Catholic peoples’ devotion, especially in Asian countries such as Sri Lanka, it is very easy to present me as somebody against Mary. My book was essentially a simple one, which suggested that we need to change the accent of Marian devotion. It also implicitly questioned the fundamental traditional understanding of the Bible and the myths developed around the concept of original sin that resulted in the exclusion of the rest of humanity from salvation, except through Jesus Christ and the Church. All of that was implied in Mary and Human Liberation.
The origins of the investigation of Balasuriya’s writings are to be found in the tensions inherent in the post-Vatican II history of the Sri Lankan Church, and there is no doubt that he has been one of the main standard bearers for a whole new understanding of the role and function of a minority Church in a largely Buddhist nation. In a number of places recently, including Sri Lanka, more conservative and ambitious younger bishops have been emboldened to go on the attack against those theologians who are well known and construed as ‘progressives’. In the case of Balasuriya the bishop was Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don, born in 1947, ordained priest in 1975 and bishop in 1991, and appointed Bishop of Ratnapura in 1995.
The book that focused Ranjith’s attack was Balasuriya’s Mary and Human Liberation. Marian devotion is very strong among Asian Catholics and it tends to express itself in forms of piety that emphasise the Blessed Virgin’s mediating role between God and believers. For Balasuriya the study of Mariology leads straight to Christology and the role and function of Christ as the sole mediator. It also raises the question of the role of women in the Church and in society, and, by implication, the question of the ordination of women. This issue appears almost out of the blue in the personal profession of faith that the CDF later demanded that Balasuriya sign. However, it is connected with the way Balasuriya discusses the role of women. But it was specifically the Christological issues in the book upon which Balasuriya’s opponents first focused.
Mary and Human Liberation was first read by a Sri Lankan bishop who proposed that it should be examined doctrinally for theological errors. The first I heard of this was on 22 December 1992 when I received a letter from the Archbishop of Colombo, Archbishop Nicholas Fernando, saying that an ad hoc committee of the Bishops’ Conference had made a study of my book, and that they wanted to discuss it with me. On 7 January 1993 we met at the Bishops’ Conference office in Colombo. The ad hoc theological commission consisted of bishops Malcolm Ranjith of Ratnapura and Vianny Fernando of Kandy, and theologians fathers Dalston Forbes, OMI, and Emmanuel Fernando. I went to the meeting with the Oblate provincial, Father Camillus Fernando.
After some small talk, Bishop Ranjith began reading rather quickly from a written document that he then gave to the commission members, and which was later given to me at my request. When Ranjith finished reading, he said that disciplinary action should be taken against me and that I should be prevented from spreading heretical views. He also claimed that what he had read were the conclusions of the whole commission. However, it became obvious later that the other members of the commission had not even seen the document in advance, although it was claimed that all four of them accepted it. So it would seem that the problem started with Bishop Ranjith and that the others were basically hedging their bets. In other words, from the very beginning there was ecclesiastical ‘hanky-panky’! This may not be theological language, but it reflects the reality of what happened.
When there is a question of dogma, most people in the Church hedge and try to argue that authority is right. Both elements were there in my case right from the start. One person, Bishop Ranjith, took a strong position, and the others were incapable of a just response because they began equivocating. That is a significant phenomenon in Church investigations: the burden of proof is always placed on the accused and the advantage of innocent correctness is accorded to the status quo. This is not the normal way that justice operates in civil society. My feeling throughout the process was that false accusations had been made which were difficult to overcome, and that everyone was protecting themselves. As a consequence I had to develop faith in my own conscience. I took down careful notes at the meeting, and when I got home I wrote them up. I was able to show that Bishop Ranjith’s document contained misrepresentations and distortions of the text of Mary and Human Liberation, largely through selective quotation. This pattern of distortion became a common phenomenon throughout the whole process. My refrain became, ‘I have not said what you say I have said.’ All along I demanded a fair inquiry by competent persons. Actually, I was not only asking for theological expertise but for competence in the English language. I wanted someone who would present my writings accurately. Often a word, like ‘however’ would be taken out of a quotation, and it changed the whole context and sense of what I was saying.
I responded to the Bishops’ Conference committee along these lines, but did not receive an answer. Suddenly, at very short notice, I was summoned to another meeting at Kandy, 190 kilometres from Colombo, on 20 April 1994, and was told without any discussion that the bishops would soon make a public statement on the book. On 5 June they published a statement in the Catholic Messenger saying that the book contained ‘four glaring errors’ and recommended Catholics not read it. They then accused me of ‘going public’, and cited as an example the fact that I had asked some nuns to pray for me, in a private letter! My public reply to their statement was never published in the Catholic Messenger. However, I did send the Bishops’ Conference a detailed 53-page response on 27 March 1995. Again, I have never received any reply to this, except that in the Catholic Messenger of 19 January 1997 this response was described as ‘inadequate’.
The other interesting thing is that I subsequently learned that the ad hoc theological commission had not met in advance to agree on Ranjith’s text. Eventually, I was informed that one commission member, Father Dalston Forbes, OMI, a theologian well known for his orthodoxy and a former rector of the national seminary, had argued that Ranjith’s theology was ‘weak’, that there had been no prior discussion of the text, and that he did not agree with a number of the assertions in it. Forbes eventually disowned Ranjith’s text.
In the meantime there had obviously been some ‘movement of the Spirit’, because on 27 July 1994 I received a letter from my superior-general in Rome, Father Marcello Zago, OMI, telling me that the CDF had ‘discussed the question of your book in their meeting of 22 June and decided to initiate the procedures foreseen in such cases; that is, that the author be requested to withdraw the opinions which are erroneous and contrary to the faith’. Specifically, the CDF said that ‘the book contains statements (existence and nature of original sin, divinity of Christ, need for redemption, Christ as the only saviour, the nature and mission of the Church, mariology) which are manifestly incompatible with the faith of the Church’. The superior-general was asked ‘to take the necessary measures as he shall see fit, which include eventually the request for a public withdrawal, and within a reasonable time he shall let the Congregation know the author’s answer’. Then came the threat: ‘Should the author not withdraw these opinions, then the Congregation would proceed to issue an official condemnation of these opinions as being contrary to the Catholic faith.’ Accompanying this letter was an anonymous set of Observations on Mary and Human Liberation.
On 14 March 1995 I sent a long response of fifty-five single-spaced A4-sized pages to the CDF’s Observations. But since I was told by those who knew Rome well that the people in the CDF would never read all of this, I also prepared an ‘executive summary’ for them. The entire exercise took me seven months of careful work. In my response, I put side by side what the CDF consultor claimed I said and what I actually said. My problem was with the CDF’s methodology. I showed fifty-eight specific instances where the consultor’s Observations contained unproved generalisations, misunderstandings, misrepresentations, distortions and falsifications. They were really unhappy about this, but there were so many mistakes that I had to protest.
The Observations had first been sent to me in Italian, and I asked for an English translation. They sent me this, including in the footnotes quotations from the text of Mary and Human Liberation. Then it suddenly dawned on me: This is not what I wrote. Their translation did not correspond to the English text of my book, and I was able to show that in the process of translating English into Italian and then back again, they had actually injected heresy into what I had said. It was such a blatant example of mistranslation and misunderstanding that a class in a Buddhist university here in Sri Lanka took it as an example of the way in which texts can be manipulated and totally misunderstood in the process of translation.
It was also a very good example of the way the system operates, because nobody listens when you protest, nobody in authority is held accountable; the accused alone must explain themselves. In my response to the Observations I asked Cardinal Ratzinger ‘to inquire into these grave misrepresentations and render justice to me by taking due action against such misrepresentations, distortions and falsifications’. I have had no response to this because everyone else involved in the process is presumed to be right. They also hide behind the mask of anonymity. This lack of accountability leads to basic miscarriages of justice which must be reformed for the sake of the Church. Dealing with these arbitrary methods is one of the key issues facing those who want to reform the CDF.
Right through this period the superior-general of the Oblates, Father Zago, kept telling me that I should conform and accept the decision of the Church authorities. He advised me that submission was ‘good for my spiritual development’. That remained his line until after my eventual excommunication, when he saw that I was not budging and that something had to be done. The local Oblates were divided: a few thought I had been treated unjustly, a few thought Rome was right, and most of the others did not seem to understand what it was all about. They tended to adopt the ‘spiritual’ line: ‘God’s will has to be accepted’ and ‘It is better to obey than to discuss all these issues’. I was told, ‘You will never succeed with Rome.’
In fact, it was interesting to reflect on people’s response to the whole affair. It really revealed the different types of personalities that make up the Church. The majority of people have goodwill but they surrender their intelligence to authority. They say that anyone going against authority or contesting a situation is wrong. Others say there must be something wrong with you personally. They try to find all types of reasons: ‘You are not a theologian, you are an economist. You don’t know what you are talking about.’ Some are more sympathetic and say: ‘What has happened to this poor old fellow after fifty-one years in priesthood? He must be disappointed, or disloyal to the pope, or have hang-ups!’ Still others claim, ‘He is too confrontationist’, or ‘proud’, ‘arrogant’ or ‘conceited’. They say, ‘His replies are too long’, or ‘Too negative’, or they ask, ‘Why is he going public?’ Others say you are ‘all emotional’, ‘obstinate’, ‘breaking the promises of ordination’, ‘ambitious’, or ‘not sufficiently supernatural’. It is a strange type of situation; you simply cannot win.
Then there are those who give you advice: ‘The Church is right; therefore, you must accept.’ Or they tell you: ‘The Church is human, you must accept that you are criticised or misunderstood.’ You get these suggestions in various combinations: ‘Live in peace as an old man and look after your health.’ Or: ‘Go to a retreat house and spend four months there.’ I was warned: ‘You should not upset the simple faithful.’ I was advised: ‘You can think these kinds of things, but you should not publish them.’ I was asked: ‘How many people will lose their faith? And you will be responsible for them going to hell.’ ‘What will the Buddhists think?’, or ‘the Marxists?’ I was often told: ‘The pope is the ultimate authority. You must submit.’ Then there was the ‘club argument’. It goes: ‘If you are in the club you must accept the rules of the club. If you don’t accept, you can leave. You can always found your own Church.’ Finally, I was told: ‘Just sign the Profession of Faith and get it over and done with. You don’t have to believe it.’
Throughout this period I carried on a considerable correspondence, much of it with the superior-general. Eight months after my detailed reply of 14 March 1995, I received a letter from the CDF, dated 20 November 1995. It was very brief and to the point. My detailed response of March 1995 was simply described as ‘unsatisfactory’. No further details were given as to how or why it was unsatisfactory. This letter was forwarded to me by Father Zago just before Christmas 1995.
In order for me to prove my faith the CDF told Father Zago that they had ‘decided to request that [I] pronounce coram testibus [in the presence of witnesses] a Profession of Faith’ which the CDF had prepared specifically for me. They told the general: ‘If the religious decides to accept this procedure, the method of repairing the damage done to the faithful will later be decided. If he decides otherwise, besides the disciplinary provisions [of] Canon 1364, consideration will be given to an eventual public declaration by this Congregation that Fr. Balasuriya is no longer a Catholic theologian.’ Canon 1364 threatens excommunication latae sententiae, a penalty reserved for apostates, heretics, schismatics and those who profane the Eucharist. The term latae sententiae means that the penalty is automatic, because the action is considered so reprehensible. Everyone, including the local bishops, was now excluded from having any participation in my situation. The CDF had taken over completely. When this threat of excommunication was made I found it unthinkable. There had been no excommunication of a theologian for half a century. I asked myself how they could come to this extreme action, when all they had said was that my response was ‘unsatisfactory’. I felt this was a complete travesty of justice.
The personal Profession of Faith was sent to me unauthenticated, unsigned, with no heading, no address and no indication of its source, except that there were Vatican stamps on the envelope. On three occasions I demanded confirmation that this was indeed their document, and asked that someone sign it on behalf of the CDF. Since I received no response I can only conclude that no one in the CDF was willing to take responsibility for it. Of course, the Profession of Faith and the threat of excommunication were merely a substitute for a fair inquiry. As I said at the time, it ‘seemed an unreasonable and unnecessary device for resolving the problem, a device which is far removed from the spirit of intellectual investigation and fraternal correction. It is a punitive act assuming that the judgment of the CDF on my book is correct.’
The whole thing seemed designed to force me into a corner, almost to give me a heart attack! In this situation I was faced with the question of personal stamina, because they trap you by a combination of forces, psychological, spiritual, theological, social, political and economic, the purpose of which is to bring you down. The old Inquisition brought the coercive power of Church and state to bear on an individual. Now they use a combination of other more subtle forces, as well as the media. In fact, it was through the BBC that I first heard about my own excommunication!
There were a number of theological problems with the CDF’s Profession of Faith. First, many Catholics who saw it had difficulty with the demand that an act of faith be made under immediate threat of excommunication. As the Indian theologian, Father Samuel Rayan, SJ, pointed out, a Profession of Faith is a celebration, a joyful act of freedom which people choose to make. It cannot be imposed. If it is imposed it ceases to be an act of faith.
Second, to preclude my argument that original sin is symbolic, and that it primarily refers to the sinful pathos of the human condition and the proneness that we all have towards evil and the collective sinfulness of society and the human environment, the CDF demanded that I profess under oath that: ‘Every man is born in sin. Therefore I hold that original sin is transmitted with human nature by propagation, not by imitation, and that it is in all men, proper to each; it cannot be taken away by the powers of human nature.’ But if this is the case, the idea that God loves us into existence is wrong, the very act of human generation is vitiated by sin, and the notion that we are born into a redeemed world is completely deceptive.
Third, I was asked to swear that: ‘I firmly accept and hold that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women.’ But, as has been pointed out by many theologians, this is still under discussion in the universal church. As Father Rayan said: ‘Dogmas cannot be fabricated overnight by any bureau by a naked use of power, bulldozing Christian conscience. To impose this as a matter of faith is an insult to Christian faith and an affront to human dignity.’
Fourth, the CDF’s Profession of Faith does not positively affirm the possibility of salvation outside the Catholic Church, as does Vatican II and the Credo of the People of God of Pope Paul VI. If the Church were to insist on this CDF Profession of Faith as binding on all, it would be a real setback for inter-religious relations and a lessening of inter-religious communion.
So what I did was to make the Credo of the People of God of Paul VI. The key differences between Paul VI’s Profession of Faith and the one drafted specifically for me by the CDF is that theirs subtracted the clause on salvation outside the Church, and added the clause forbidding women’s ordination. To Paul VI’s profession, I added the following: ‘I, Fr Tissa Balasuriya, OMI, make and sign this Profession of Faith of Pope Paul VI in the context of theological development and Church practice since Vatican II and the freedom and responsibility of Christians and theological searchers under canon law.’ I signed it on 14 May 1996, and it was forwarded to Rome.
I heard no more until 7 December 1996, when I was summoned to the residence of the papal nuncio, Archbishop Oswaldo Padilla. I wanted to take a theologian with me, but I was told just to come with my provincial [Father Camillus Fernando]. The nuncio read out to me the Notification of Excommunication. It was about 7:15 pm. He said: ‘Here and now you must sign this Profession of Faith, or else tomorrow, 8 December [the Feast of the Immaculate Conception], you will be excommunicated.’ I refused to sign, even though the provincial suggested that I do so. No copy of the notification of excommunication was given to me. I was informed that the CDF considered that my additional clause about theological development to the Credo of the People of God ‘rendered the declaration defective since it diminished the universal and permanent value of the definitions of the magisterium’. My claim was that the clause was not a condition, but only a note of context. Anyway, such interpretations were irrelevant since the excommunication was already signed with effect the next day.
Fortunately, the previous day I had heard from a source in Rome that the notification was coming. So I had written a letter appealing directly to the pope. I gave it to the nuncio and asked him to forward it to the pope. He told me to post it myself. I said: ‘No. You are here to represent him. I want you to send it.’ The point of my appeal to the pope was that there had been no formal, impartial inquiry to establish the orthodoxy or otherwise of my theological positions. I added that natural justice and the law of the Church require that a judgment on a matter as serious as apostasy, heresy or schism, referred to in Canon 1364, cannot be made without a formal juridical procedure in which the accused enjoys ‘the right to know his accusers and also the right to a proper defence’, and in which the accusers are not also the judges. I also pointed out that it was not only a question of justice to me; the administrative and judicial integrity of the Church was also at stake. My view was that if I appealed, the excommunication would be stayed.
On 27 December I received a letter from the secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, saying that the pope was well aware of the whole process, and that he had approved of the excommunication. Despite this, I have always questioned whether the pope had seen the documentation. It is clear to me that he views Mary and Human Liberation as presented by the CDF, not by me. I have no idea as to how much time was spent by the pope considering my case, but I really cannot believe that he would do such a thing without thorough study. Of course the Curia uses the system and the pope. They operate in the name of the pope – and of God. We must challenge that.
On 5 January 1997 the notification of excommunication (dated 8 December 1996) was published in the Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano. This information was reported by the foreign media and that was when I heard about my excommunication on the BBC. Again I felt a travesty of justice had been committed, so I decided to appeal on 13 January 1997 to the Apostolic Signatura. This is the highest tribunal of appeal in the Church’s judicial system. Its role is to examine procedural issues that arise in other tribunals and administrative systems. Only approved advocates can practise before it. At first the Signatura seemed almost enthusiastic to take up the case. They sent me a list of lawyers accredited to appear before them. I had just chosen an Austrian woman lawyer and had begun negotiations with her, when they suddenly refused to hear the case because the excommunication had been approved personally by the pope. It was at this point that I totally lost confidence in the process. It was not possible to have any honourable dealings with this type of legal system.
I had tried to convince Church authorities at all levels that what they were saying about my book was not accurate and that they were misreporting what I wrote. They always had the initiative and insisted on remaining anonymous. They were not subject to any form of appeal. They claimed to speak on behalf of the truth and wisdom of God. Yet they did not allow even the local hierarchy to try to come to a compromise solution. The ultimate disappointment for me was that the appeal to the Holy Father was totally frustrated by a statement that the pope had approved of all the CDF decisions. If the pope had really read the book and considered all the issues involved, I honestly believe he would have never acted in the way he is said to have done. A terrible problem of conscience arises. One cannot accept the blunders and untruths perpetrated constantly by Church authorities. They were imposing not only social and ecclesiastical ostracism, but also implicitly threatening eternal damnation.
I then had to make a decision – between trust in God and Jesus and fidelity to my conscience, and acceptance of the right of the authorities to impose sanctions which are binding. As I told the BBC television program ‘Absolute Truth’, this all turned out to be ‘a terrible engine of oppression that must be changed’. It is necessary to remedy this situation for the sake of the Church herself, for the sake of the pope and papacy. I saw how much the pope was used as a spiritual bogeyman to oppress people and cow them. I had to make a decision that, come what may, I would not give in to terror tactics. I had long struggled against injustice in civil society, and I had faced death threats from those who opposed our efforts for justice and human rights in Sri Lanka. Now it was a question of facing the threat of being cut off from the Christian community and all the services and activities of the Church to which I had given my life. As a result of the excommunication I could not participate in any Church ceremonies such as weddings or funerals, let alone mass or any other liturgical service. On the one hand, I felt like I was being treated as a spiritual leper by people with whom I had lived my life. On the other, I had affirmation, support and solidarity from people from near and far.
Even today there is no remedy against the false accusations and abuse of theological authority and biased judicial process, as well as against the one-sided, prejudiced presentation of the case given in the Church media. For instance, in Sri Lanka the Catholic newspaper, the Catholic Messenger, attacked me every week for four and a half months, and when the excommunication was eventually lifted, they did not have the graciousness to say even one word acknowledging what had happened and withdrawing the false charges that they had run for so long. This newspaper is published by the archdiocese of Colombo. It also serialised what was to become a booklet attacking me entitled Mary and Human Liberation – the Other Side. This shows how much some Catholics are indoctrinated to think they are completely right when they toe the party line in the Church.
Many people have asked me what it was that finally persuaded Rome to participate in bringing about a reconciliation and lifting the excommunication a year later. Was it the worldwide outcry and the extensive media coverage that followed the excommunication, or was it the work of the Oblates, or what? I think it was a number of things. Certainly, the Oblate general house in Rome initiated the process. They had received a lot of critical letters. It is an interesting juxtaposition that I was excommunicated in January 1997 and in April 1998 Father Zago was made an archbishop and Secretary for the Congregation for Evangelization of Peoples in the Roman Curia! So perhaps this was a kind of clearing of the way; because it would be difficult for him to be an archbishop in Rome if he had a member causing so much trouble that he was excommunicated.
There was also a consciousness and conviction among senior people in Rome that they were wrong and had handled the whole thing badly. There was no way that they could escape from my calls for an independent tribunal, even a secular one, to come to grips with the fact that I had not said what the CDF had accused me of saying. I also think that they realised that they could not avoid the problems involved with the doctrine of original sin, salvation outside the Church and women’s ordination. Also, the threat to take the Archbishop of Colombo to the civil court for defamation over the pamphlet Mary and Human Liberation – the Other Side put pressure on Church authorities to resolve the issue.
Eventually, the Vatican agreed that a process of reconciliation might occur, but insisted that I make some form of Profession of Faith, express regret, and that I submit future works for Church approval. So the Oblates set up a week-long process in Sri Lanka to explore the possibility of reconciliation. We did get an agreement on the very last morning of the process, but even then it was touch and go. We were able to work out a formula of reconciliation that left some room for ambiguity, which everyone accepted. A reconciliation liturgy was celebrated on 15 January 1998 when the excommunication was removed. I agreed again to sign the Credo of the People of God of Paul VI. As a basis for reconciliation we all accepted ‘that the meaning of dogmatic formulas remains always true and unchangeable, though capable of being expressed more clearly and understood better’. In other words, the traditional formulations of dogma are open to varying interpretations in different contexts. This was the basis upon which the remainder of my affirmations rested. I maintained that there was no error proved in my writings, nor confession of any error by me. I accepted that there was confusion, but that this arose because ‘doctrinal errors were perceived in my writing and therefore provoked negative reactions from other parties, affected relationships and led to unfortunate polarisation in the ecclesial community. I truly regret the harm this caused.’ It is really all a question of perception. I also point out that no punishment was imposed in this reconciliation.
On the final day of the discussion, the Archbishop of Colombo was designated to carry out the canonical reconciliation. A text had been drafted for him to read to the media. But what he presented was different from what we had signed. It said that I ‘regretted error’. I was taken aback. Despite a media embargo, the Vatican radio quoted Archbishop Fernando’s comment that I ‘regretted [my] error’, and that went out all over the world as an accurate description of what I had accepted. It was totally unfair. When I told the nuncio that I was going public about this misrepresentation of my position, he accused Father Zago of drafting the text. Father Zago said: ‘I drafted it and gave it to Archbishop Fernando. After that I don’t know what happened.’ So we started the affair with ecclesiastical ‘hanky-panky’ and we certainly ended with it! The real question is whether the CDF is ever really ready for reconciliation, and will it ever admit that it has made a mistake? I felt very betrayed by the misrepresentation. That is why I want to set the record straight.
First, I accepted that all dogmas are subject to interpretation. In other words, that God is one but the names of God and the paths to God are many; the truth is one, but the paths to truth are many; and that all theologies, as human expressions, are analogical, culture-bound and relative. Here I would point out that I did not accept that women cannot be ordained, and I did not accept original sin in the way it has been traditionally taught. That is very important for Asian theology. In Asia, where Christianity is a minority religion, we cannot accept that the whole of humanity is in original sin in the sense that they are alienated from God. We cannot accept that all our forebears are in hell. Regarding redemption, I have maintained my view that Jesus did not have to pay a price to God to save us, although this interpretation has so impregnated our prayers, hymns and attitudes. I believe in the story of the prodigal son in the Gospel, where the father, without preconditions, runs out to receive his erring offspring. Therefore, the mission of the Church is not so much to convert to Christianity as to convert all to humanity. There is now a little more space for a continuing debate about these issues and particularly about the role of other religions.
I am often asked how I make sense of it all. Personally, I think Cardinal Josef Ratzinger is trying to close the openings that occurred at Vatican II. Pope John Paul II seems not fully clear in his mind about this. He has the view that Jesus is somehow the only saviour. During the reconciliation process, Rome demanded that I accept this, but I refused. So we compromised and said Jesus was the ‘universal saviour’. The question of what salvation is, from what, to what, by whom and how, remains a focal point for Asian theology. These questions are not being discussed so clearly in Europe or North America. The core of the problem for us is: if you say that the human Jesus is essential for salvation, then there is no future for the Church in Asia. However, if you talk about the message of Jesus, or Christ as the uncreated divine son of God, then Asians understand what you are talking about. But the human Jesus is seen as one among many saviours in Asian cultures.
Second, they wanted me to accept prior censorship of my books (what is called the imprimatur), and I accepted this ‘in terms of Canon law’. However, this only applies if I translate the scriptures, or write a catechetical text for use in schools or a book that is sold in the Church porch. Later on, after I had written an article, they came back to me and demanded that I obtain the imprimatur because I was a member of a religious order. I told them I would accept that it if they imposed it universally on all members of religious orders. If it was imposed only on me it would be a punishment, and I am not subject to any punishment. They backed off.
Finally, I am often asked whether I think the CDF has a future role in the Church. I do, and I think that its role should be the promotion of theology, not the defence of orthodoxy. There needs to be a genuine rethinking for the twenty-first century, when the Church will be more of the South and the East than of the North and the West. It will be a Church of the poor not for the rich, of women and laity rather than clergy. That newly emerging Church will need a new body to assist in the orientation of theology. I would like a commission of inquiry to look at the activities of the CDF over the past fifty years, so that the truth about the suppression of creative theology can come out and we can ask pardon for the way theologians were treated. But, more importantly, this can become the basis for a creative body promoting theology. Membership of this creative body should be Catholic in the fullest sense and not just a ladder of promotion for ambitious clerics. There is nobody on the CDF from Asia, so membership should be broadened. Its theologians should be living and working with people – say six months in Rome and six months in our slums. In this way it would have people with real, pastoral experience.
We can no longer accept secret, anonymous denunciations. Those who accuse others to Rome must be subject to reasonable norms of inquiry. If they defame or falsely accuse someone, they should be subject to punishment. This is operative in civil society. A judge will not allow false witnesses in civil cases, but in the Church they hide behind a mask of righteousness and holiness. This is where the secular media becomes important. We should use it, and realise that the Holy Spirit speaks through it. The media are often far more respectful of truth, accuracy and authenticity than people in the Church. They are careful to see that what they say reflects what the person actually said. There is a whole younger generation moving into the media now, particularly women. My support for women’s ordination particularly appealed to them.
The Apostolic Signatura needs to become more effective but it is stymied if the CDF has someone excommunicated latae sententiae – automatically. The CDF must be under the Signatura, at least concerning processes and procedure. It should not be possible to use a pope as accuser, judge and final source of appeal. The only result of that tactic is to paralyse the whole system. The CDF must be accountable and not hide behind a facade of being above Church law. The CDF tries to maintain that in matters of doctrine it is ‘supreme’; this is a myth. There should also be a conscious networking of those people who are under investigation by the CDF. An association of those who have experienced investigation would be very useful; they could speak with a common voice, though they might not be necessarily in agreement on common theological positions.
It strikes me that there is widespread fear among Catholics when they deal with theology and institutions such as the CDF. As a result, almost all of the structures of the Church become inoperative. At all levels – diocesan, national and even the international level – everyone becomes stymied. There is a sort of ‘holy fear’, a kind of religious reign of terror, with threats of hell, excommunication and exclusion. These psychological weapons are used to frighten people, as the threat of torture was in the past by the Inquisition. That is why it is important to emphasise that where there is love, there is no fear. If we do not become a community of love and acceptance, people will just bypass the Church.
For me Jesus is the spiritual leader who gives profound meaning to life, and the identifiable community in which I have discovered him is the Catholic Church. But I do not want the Church to be taken over by people who think they have the monopoly of truth. This is the community to which I have belonged throughout my life. If you are a Catholic you are in communion with one-sixth of humanity all over the world. It transcends nationality and frontiers. The crisis over the book and excommunication confronted me with the need to struggle for human rights in the Church and to work for the reform of theology. These changes will eventually come from the base Catholic community, rather than from the top. The great joy for me in the whole process was the confirmation of my Catholicity and my solidarity with people, as well as the formal and informal support I received from several thousands of laity, religious, bishops and even cardinals.
At the heart of all this is the question of conscience. We cannot accept arbitrary authority, and there comes a point when we must say that eternal destiny is not determined by particular persons, or what is called ‘orthodoxy’, but by one’s conscience and by our relationship to the divine. In India and Sri Lanka there is a tradition of spiritual resistance to dominant establishments. This comes originally from the Buddha and is exemplified by Gandhi and others. As a result, people in this culture support you if you are poor and manifest an understanding of the divine as universal, beneficent and compassionate. The tradition here is that a priest or monk will never die of hunger because it is part of our culture that someone who has opted for religion and the search for the transcendent will be looked after by the community.
In my case, ultimately, no matter what happened, I was never afraid of being hungry and on the street!