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In a ruling casting doubt on the sincerity of the Vatican's
interfaith outreach, Pope John Paul II has excommunicated a
72-year old priest whose service to the Roman church has extended
over 51 years. Even Vatican officials are privately wondering
about the pontiff's wisdom.
"Its like Martin Luther time all over again," says
one critic of Roman Catholic dogmatism. "This priest's
excommunication is for the same reason and builds on Luther's
independent stances. resulting in an accusation of 'relativism.'
If the present pope had let Father Balasuriya go his own way,
without calling attention to him, the entire matter might have
gone unnoticed."
The excommunicated priest, a Sri Lankan, The Reverend Tissa
Balasuriya, dared to raise issues of interfaith communication the
Vatican has ignored since Vatican II, an expansive conference
called by Pope John the popular Roman Catholic head of state in
the early 1960's.
As in the past, Roman Catholic officialdom has resisted any
compromise with its centralized powers. The movement for
Christian unity, according to Father Alexis Fernando, another Sri
Lankan priest, has thus been stalled. "The manner in which
the Reverend Balasuriya, a respected theologian, was disposed of
without due process is the sort of thing no other Christian
congregation will tolerate from its governing board simply
because it is un-Christian," he stated.
"Roman Catholicism has given itself a big black
eye," complained another dissenting priest. People in Father
Balasuriya's neighborhood are Buddhists, Hindus and Moslems.
Father Balisuriya's 'crime' was to suggest that Catholics show
greater interest in the teachings of other faiths. The Pope
didn't want to hear that."
Supporters of the Pope insist that without its claim to
centralized authority Roman Catholicism would lose its reason for
being. "The Vatican's authority is analogous to that of any
other judicial body," said one layman, "Every judicial
system in the world has a high court."
The Reverend Balasuriya's fame has spread world-wide since his
recent excommunication. The Pope based the expulsion--which
portends hell fire--on the Sri Lankan theologian's recent book, Mary
and Human Liberation, which is said to have been originally
circulated to only 600 persons. The contents of this book, due
mainly to the Pope's reaction, are now well known. "All of
us are shocked and surprised," said New Delhi's prominent
Jesuit theologian, Reverend Samuel Rayan, who accepts some of
Father Balasuriya's views. "We thought the church had been
moving away from such punitive activities."
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