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| Sunday, 27 November 2005 |
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CWF condemns foolish action of Church hierarchy The Christian Workers Fellowship (CWF) welcomes the decision of the people at the recently concluded Presidential election and pledges its support to the new President and his government in pursuing a progressive political programme in the face of all the pressures of imperialist Globalisation and local capitalist reaction. The CWF also support his commitment to resolve the national question through a multi-party approach and consensus and review the operation of the ceasefire through discussion with the LTTE. As a working peoples organisation outside the institutional church structures (though relating to the organised Churches), the CWF is relieved that the efforts to misuse religion by right-wing interests has at least not had its full impact on Christian voters in this election. For the publication of a full page newspaper advertisement by commercial interests under the caption "Christians Awake!", and reproducing a Message of Archbishop Oswald Gomis to Christian voters, together with the action of certain clergy in reading out this message from church pulpits and even instructing the faithful on how they should vote, brought back memories of such practices in 1947 and the early 1950s when clergy described voting for Marxist parties as a "mortal sin" - dark days that we thought had vanished after good Pope John XXIII brought in Vatican II. It was precisely to counter this sorry state of the Church and to provide a proper Christian response to the mass electoral upheaval of 1956 that the CWF itself came into being. We urge that such foolish actions by the Church hierarchy today which could only contribute to creating religious tension and dissension and be detrimental to the image of Christians be stopped forthwith. We would in this situation commend to the hierarchy, the example of Church leaders like Bishops Leo Nanayakkara and Lakshman Wickremasinghe, who were able to put aside narrow parochial church interests and espouse the cause of the working people and oppressed fearlessly and unambiguously in their struggle for the advancement of the Kingdom of God/Dharma. We see also the need for the Church hierarchy to have clear social perspectives and analysis that would enable them to understand the class forces and social interests that stand behind parties, labels and slogans in any political struggle and so help them to more easily identify with Christ's own poor and be thus loyal to the true mission of the Church in our land and to Jesus himself who came to cast fire on the earth and would utter biting, scathing words against the rich, the respectable and the religious leaders of his day. |
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