Surffering through the Liberation Struggle
opens a way to a new Christology
Boast, I will, definitely not in my name, but in the name of God, who did
marvellous things, using me as his humble instrument!!!
Following the spirt of Magnificat which Mary sang in meeting Elizabeths
greeting, I will extoll in the works of the Lord in me.
After being a long time priest and professor of a Christology learnt in Rome
and lived and taught in Sri Lanka at the National Seminary of Kandy and at
St.Francis major Seminary in Jaffna, I had to rethink my understanding
and following of Jesus Christ in the context of my liberation struggle along
with my people from 1986.
Up to this time, I lived from my Roman days 1962-67 and thereafter according to
a christology and also taught very faithfully the dogmatic christology learnt
in Rome. Although my student days coincided with the 2nd Vatican Council
1962-67, the philosophy and theology I learnt mostly in latin, were scholastic
in character. I listened to the periti or theological experts to the Council -
Fathers Karl Rahner SJ from Germany, Yves Congar OP from France, Edward
Schillebeeckx OP from Holland, and seen t he historic leaders of the church of
the time - Pope John XX111, Pope Paul V1, Cardinals Pietro Agagianian, Suenens,
Koenig, Doepfner, Augustino Bea, and many others who impressed me, yet my
theological vision and life in the church remained very loyal and drawn out by
the Roman church. But five years later when I returned to Rome in 1972, the
brief pastoral responsability given to me by Bishop Emilianuspillai OMI, to
look after 10 smaller communities around Manipy, to be diocesan director for
lay apostolate groups like Legio Marie and Diocesan Union of laity and to lead
the 16 lay-catechists of the diocese, all these gave me chance to get
closer to the village laity and the lay-catechists as their leaders, to
experience a church of the people, led by the people. My younger student days
in the legion of mary and catholic sstudents federation, and years prior
to mmy jjoining tthe sseminary as science tteacher aand
jjournalist -- all these rremained iin mme aas foundtional
eexperiences uunchanged oor diminished by the roman
ttheology.
Hence returning to Rome to do my doctorate under my former professor of
ecclesiology Prof. Vodopivec of the then Yugoslavia, I chose to study the role
of lay catechists in the churches of the mission lands. And to do this
reseaarch in the light of the teachings of the 2nd Vatican Council. Thus mmy
doctoral research was to shed light of the teachinngs of the Council on my
foundational experience with the laityy in our churches.
I wanted to show that thhe teachings of Vatican II was opening a new
recognition of the millions of lay catechists in Africa and Asia who
evangelised and still evangelising the local or ggrass-churches.
When I returned to Sri Lanka in 1976, I published my thesis with financial help
from Missio, Germany at the Lake House Press in Colombo with the title -
Recognizing the Faceless Ministers of the Church. Copies of this were sent to
institutees and Bishops of Africa and Asia.
iin 1979 there was an Asian Colloquium on New Ministries for the asiaan
churches held in Hong Kong and I was invited along with the indian theologians
Father James Dupuis and Amalorpavadas to be one of the theological experts.
In the same year, the World Council of Churches of Geneva held a
colloqium on Minnistries in Tagatay, Philippines and I was invited as a
Roman Catholic resource person to participate. This was followed by the
Foederation of Asian Bishops Conferences -FABC- inviting me to be the member
from Sri Lanka in the first Theological Advisory Committee 1986-94. Regular and
frequent participation in many of the theological and pastoral meetings,
seminars and conferences offered me great help in rethinking my roman theology
in the asian context of peoples, religions and cultures. ( writing once to a
magazine Diakonia from Austria, I confessed that I learnt more theology after
my priestly ordination in Rome, through my ministry and engagement with
people at home and in Asia.)
Working regularly and intensely with a group of asian theologians once a year
on issues of theological interst to Asia, and invited to lead seminars in
different asian countries gave me courage and confidence to think forward on
lines indicated by Vatican II. It was a great joy for me to give the key note
address in September 1986 to the plenary sessions held in Tokyo to over 130
asian bisshops of the FABC. Cardinal Pignodoli, head of the secretariate
for laity in Rome, was participating in it beecause this session was ment
to be the asian preparation for the Roman Synod on Laity in October 1987.
My paper was titled " Rediscovering the laity and their role in the
asian churches". This paper was acclaimed by the edito of Concilium in his
editorial, as the best exposition he had come across (Concilium ???.......) I
was invited to be present in Rome during the whole Synod and help write some
contributions by the asian bishops.
The choice of themes and the theological approach we adopted was naturally not
pleasing to Rome, especially to Cardinal Ratzinger. Inter-religious Dialogue,
Local Churches and Inculturation, Church and Politics, Asian Pneumatology,
Theology of Harmony, Being Church in Asia ...were themes, though meant by us as
complementing to the western scholastic theology, were disturbing to the
romans!!!
