(OSV News) — Among the six Asia-based cardinals noted by OSV News as “papabili,” Sri Lankan Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith was the lone prelate to receive the cardinalate from Pope Benedict XVI, while the rest were made cardinals by Pope Francis.
The archbishop of Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital, is seen as one who would please both disciples of Francis and Benedict XVI in the College of Cardinals.
More often than not seen as a traditionalist who could very well continue in the footsteps of Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Ranjith, 77, has also had a strong affinity for the poor like the late Pope Francis.
Bishop Harold Perera of Kurunegala, president of the Sri Lanka’s bishops’ conference remembers the young Father Ranjith as an associate pastor at his home parish in Pamunugama just north of Colombo, along the South Asian country’s west coast.
‘A Very Energetic Young Priest’
“He was a very energetic young priest,” Bishop Perera told OSV News. “He started his social work (there). It is a coastal belt. A lot of fishermen were there. And he supported them … trying to buy boats for them and various other things.”
Bishop Perera, 73, said then-Father Ranjith, who often rode a bicycle to visit the poor, made an impression on him as a seminarian, and he invited the priest to vest him during his ordination in 1980. That began a long mentorship that continues today.
Cardinal Ranjith, a native of Polgahawela northeast of Colombo, completed a bachelor’s degree at the Pontifical Urbanian University and graduate studies at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, both in Rome.
Bishop Perera said as then-auxiliary bishop of Colombo, the cardinal started the local Caritas of the archdiocese and then headed the bishops’ conference Commission for Justice, Peace and Human Development. He later became president of the conference.
A Heart for Children’s Faith Formation
Bishop Perera also described the cardinal’s heart for children and their faith formation, saying he resuscitated the Pontifical Society of the Holy Childhood in the Colombo Archdiocese, in 1988.
“He gave a new vision to the Holy Childhood association. So he started it in Sri Lanka with a few children. Today it’s a very big association … to give them the doctrine to learn so they can become little missionaries,” he said.
Continuing the pontifical mission work, Cardinal Ranjith, a polyglot with 10 languages, became adjunct secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and president of the Pontifical Mission Societies in 2001.
In 2005 he was papal nuncio to Indonesia, the world’s most Muslim country, and East Timor, following the devastation of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that killed 230,000. He also became secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of Sacraments, where he upheld liturgical tradition, while also following Vatican II’s instruction on having ordinary language and opening the priest’s stance to face the congregation during Mass.
‘Theologically Conservative’
Bernardo Brown, of Tokyo’s International Christian University, who specializes in the priesthood in Sri Lanka said the cardinal was “theologically conservative but also politically conservative.”
“For Catholic clergy, he’s the boss,” Brown told OSV News, but more “progressive” priests Cardinal Ranjith worked with opposed — among his more conservative stances — a short-lived requirement in 2012 for women to wear veils at Mass.
Brown said during the civil war, a 26-year conflict that ended in 2009, the cardinal aligned with the majority Buddhist Sinhalese government, which was fighting the mainly Hindu Tamil separatists. In the complex, multi-layered conflict, Tamils demanded an autonomous state, but were ultimately defeated by the Sinhala.
According to Brown, in this Buddhist majority country of 23 million, Catholics hold a unique position being among both Sinhalese and Tamils, of which there are significantly more Sinhala Catholics. Buddhists make up 70% of the population, while Christians, mostly Catholics, make up seven percent, Hindus 13% and Muslims 10%.
Tamil Priests Appealed for Help
Brown said after the war when rights violations continued, Tamil priests appealed to the cardinal, a prominent church leader, for help and received none.
But according to Jehan Perera, the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka executive director, during the war, the cardinal “was courageous” when he and late Bishop Rayappu Joseph of Mannar, a Tamil, both acted as emissaries for peace at the behest of the government.
“In a way he took the middle part in the conflict, and helped the church to be a bridge-builder,” Perera said.
Both Brown and Jehan Perera said since the 2019 Easter bombings that rocked several churches and luxury hotels around the country and killed 269 people, Cardinal Ranjith has become a vocal critic of the government. He regularly makes media appearances, faulting the administration for dragging its heels on the investigation and trial of the attacks, and accusing then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa of reneging on a campaign promise to seek justice for the victims.
As for Cardinal Ranjith’s name appearing on papabile lists, his friend Bishop Perera said, “Certainly we’d like him to be the pope, but it is up to the work of the Spirit. Then, of course, whoever comes to that position, we always give our loyalty and allegiance.”
Simone Orendain writes for OSV News from Chicago.
