Cardinal: Christian fringe groups threaten social, religious harmony

International probe will be necessary unless …

By Norman Palihawadana

Archbishop of Colombo, Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith yesterday told media that they would go before international courts if the government didn’t take any action against those behind the Easter Sunday attacks or failed to conduct an investigation based on the PCoI findings during its Easter Sunday carnage probe.

The Cardinal said that he had asked for a copy of the final report of the PCoI from President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. After reading the report he would decide whether there were any shortcomings in it, the Cardinal said.

His Eminence said that legal action should be taken against those who failed to take action despite receiving prior warnings.

The Catholic Church had no connections to various pastors of fringe sects. In recent times a number of people, who called themselves pastors, had emerged and they had been targeting senior artistes, sportsmen and business persons, the Cardinal said.

“The Catholic Church is thousands of years old and we have a coherent organisational structure and to become a Catholic priest, a person has to study for a few years. In the past few decades a bunch of people have also started preaching and these people are not a part of any organization. We don’t know if they have had training.”

The Cardinal said that those pastors were misleading the people. Given that Sri Lankans were already burdened with various issues, from crippling cost of living and debt, it was easy to mislead them by promising relief.