SANCTIFYING OFFICE

Liturgy and the Poor

“Love for the liturgy and love for the poor: two true and proper treasures of the Church, one might say, have been the compass of my life.” Cardinal Ranjith most clearly exhibited and developed his devotion to the liturgy both as the second-ranking official on the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and as the archbishop of Colombo. In Cardinal Ranjith’s view, the heart of the liturgy is Christ, and any abuses usurping such a truth must be resisted, because “the protagonist of the Mass is Christ.” For Ranjith, other conceptions of the Mass are therefore ordered by this principle. “Others explain the Eucharist in a way that places the accent on its banquet/meal dimension, linking it to ‘communion,’” he has said. “This too is an important consideration, but we should remember that it is not so much a communion created by those taking part in the Eucharist as much as by the Lord Himself.”

Traditional Guidelines

One of his first actions as archbishop of Colombo was to bring back altar rails and to issue guidelines reinstituting reception of Holy Communion on the tongue and while kneeling. But he did not impose such changes on parishes; rather, many had asked for them, and he says it was reception of Holy Communion in the hand while standing up that had been the unwanted imposition. Ranjith also prefers celebration of the Mass ad orientem but believes such directives should be left to bishops. Like others, such as Cardinal Raymond Burke and the former head of the Vatican’s liturgical office, Cardinal Antonio Cañizares, Cardinal Ranjith also has strong reservations about concelebration, a novelty promoted since the Second Vatican Council, largely because he believes it deters priests from celebrating daily Mass themselves.

One implication Cardinal Ranjith draws from the centrality of the Eucharist is that Sunday Mass should not be “easily replaced by Liturgies of the Word [with distributions of Holy Communion], or worse still by so-called ecumenical prayer services.” Rather, “the Eucharist makes the Church,” and it should be celebrated if at all possible.

If the Eucharist were “celebrated under various guises along with the Protestant pastors,” it would be “totally unacceptable and [constitute] graviora delicta.”¹A graviora delicta — a “more serious crime” — is an “external violation against faith and morals, or in the celebration of the sacraments The Church considers such violations so serious that there is a special process to handle them.” For Ranjith, the celebration of the Eucharist must be carried out in the appropriate manner Priests should wear proper vestments, a discipline Cardinal Ranjith has enforced in the Archdiocese of Colombo. Proper vestments symbolize that the priest is putting on Christ, whose centrality in the Mass should not be marginalized by, for example, an excessively long homily. Instead, in the cardinal’s view, homilies should be “10 minutes, 15 at most.”

Liturgical Reform and the Vetus Ordo

In a 2011 message to Foederatio Internationalis Una Voce, Cardinal Ranjith expressed his support for a restoration of the “true liturgical traditions of the Church” — a reform of the reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council as well as a return to the Traditional Latin Mass.

Liturgy, he said, “can never be what man creates,” for this would mean that we “fix the rules ourselves” and then “run the risk of recreating Aaron’s golden calf.” He added: “The time has come for us to not only renew through radical changes the content of the new Liturgy, but also to encourage more and more a return of the Vetus Ordo, as a way for a true renewal of the Church, which was what the Fathers of the Church seated in the Second Vatican Council so desired.”

Boundaries for the Laity

The laity, too, should be careful not to obscure the presence of Christ in the Mass. Thus, according to Cardinal Ranjith, laypersons should not engage in “dances and applause in the middle of the Masses, which are not a circus or a stadium.” Nor should they “arrogate to [themselves] tasks that are reserved for the priests,” such as “preach[ing] the homily instead of the priest, even when he is present, or distribut[ing] Holy Communion, leaving the priest to sit idle at the altar.”

Cardinal Ranjith favors traditional Roman influence on the liturgy, and, although not opposed to the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, he regrets that it has often been reduced to a “humanistic, man-centered festival” or a “Protestant Bible-service.”²Forthcoming book interview with Roman Catholic Books Publishers (2025). He laments the existence in the Church of “a certain anti-Roman ‘feeling’” and “a sense of misunderstanding of the true nature, content and meaning of the Roman rite and its norms and rubrics, which [has] led to an attitude of free experimentation.” He also identifies “the quasi total abandonment of the Latin language, tradition and chant” as a negative development since Vatican II.

Inculturation

This is not to say that Cardinal Ranjith opposes all inculturation of the liturgy. For example, he has praised “the use of vernacular languages in the liturgy, which helped to lead the faithful to better understand the Word of God.” In his view, certain Roman or traditional elements of the Faith may aid inculturation efforts. “Learning the simplicity and beauty of [the] great body of chant,” for instance, would “help musically talented priests and seminarians in Asia to be inspired by it and be able to compose dignified and prayerful chant forms that can harmonize better with the local culture.” Also, wearing “cassocks or religious garb” is important because “in Asian culture, persons dedicated to God or religion are always visible in his or her own garb, like the Buddhist monk or the Hindu sannyasi (holy man).” Finally, the cardinal thinks that receiving Holy Communion while kneeling is important in conveying the Divine Presence in a culture where prostration before God is normal. To oppose such measures is, in Cardinal Ranjith’s view, to favor “de-culturation,” not inculturation — and “to project our faith as an appendix of a secular and globalizing culture that endorses secular values and seeks to represent these in Asia.”

Ranjith nonetheless opposes “a far too facile interpretation of what could be absorbed from local cultures into the liturgy.” In explanation of this concern, he has said, “I once was listening to a radio talk given by a Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka who ridiculed Christians for allowing local drum beating in their churches without knowing that those beats in fact were chants of praise for the Buddha.”

Cardinal Ranjith would have the liturgy draw people not to Buddha but to Christ — whatever the circumstances. During a recent epidemic, for example, His Eminence recommended “special prayers at the Holy Mass during the week and the possible celebration of a triduum on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.” More generally, the cardinal thinks the liturgy is essential to “convinc[ing] the faithful to make sacrifices in their ethical and moral options,” for “in the liturgy, we should experience the closeness of God to our heart so intensely that we in turn begin to believe fervently and are compelled to act justly.”

GOVERNING OFFICE

Early Governance

From the start of his priestly ministry, Malcolm Ranjith was active in Church governance, founding the Colombo Archdiocese’s social service arm, which “focused on helping the poor and marginalized.” As a priest in 1988, he revitalized Sri Lanka’s Holy Childhood Society, an organization that aims to foster a missionary spirit among children aged six to fourteen. Ranjith has a great love for leading children in the Faith and is known by locals as the “Children’s Bishop.”

Tissa Balasuriya

In 1994, he was named auxiliary bishop of Colombo. In that same year, he led “a commission that denounced the theological work of Sri Lankan theologian Tissa Balasuriya, charging that he had questioned original sin and the divinity of Christ, as well as supporting women’s ordination.”

The move was controversial, but Pope John Paul II encouraged the denunciation, telling Ranjith that Balasuriya’s work was “neopelagianism.” Then- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was also fully supportive.

In 1995, Ranjith was named bishop of the new diocese of Ratnapura, Sri Lanka. He was active in the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Sri Lanka and led the National Commission for Justice, Peace and Human Development. He played a key role in helping to organize the beatification of St. Joseph Vaz, known as the “Apostle of Ceylon,” in 1995.

Propaganda Fide

Called to Rome in 2001, Ranjith began work as adjunct secretary at the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (Propaganda Fide), where his resistance to corrupt practices led him to be forced out by his superiors. He was then sent back to Southeast Asia, where, despite not having any formal training to be a papal diplomat, he was appointed apostolic nuncio to Indonesia and East Timor. The appointment has been a highlight of his episcopal career. He already knew many of Indonesia’s bishops and, through his connections, was effective in helping bring aid to the country through the Church’s humanitarian arm, Caritas.

Congregation for Divine Worship

The appointment was short, and the following year he was recalled to Rome to serve as the second-ranking official on the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. During that tenure, Pope Benedict XVI authorized wider use of the Tridentine Mass in his 2007 Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum. Then-Bishop Ranjith strongly supported the measure and criticized its slow implementation by some bishops as “rebellion towards the Pope.”

While in Rome, Ranjith expressed some goodwill toward the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX). In particular, he affirmed that “sometimes” what they say about the liturgy “they say for good reason.” Later, according to an SSPX priest, the cardinal said he would entrust his archdiocesan seminarians to the SSPX, if they were reconciled with the Church. On the other hand, Cardinal Ranjith has also declared himself “not a fan of the Lefebvrians” because “they still haven’t re-entered into full communion with the Holy See.” He seems to have made no public comment on Pope Francis’ recent initiatives aimed at reconciliation with the SSPX.

Archbishop of Colombo

In 2009, Ranjith was named archbishop of Colombo and issued his famous liturgical guidelines, mentioned above. In 2010, then-Archbishop Ranjith was elevated to cardinal. The cardinal’s directives to priests coincided with an increase in diocesan priests from 2013 to 2016, gaining more in that period than the diocese had in the preceding seven years.³The archdiocese had 341 diocesan priests in 2016, up from 298 in 2013 and 255 in 2006. By contrast, the number of men in religious life in the archdiocese fell during that whole period.⁴The number of women religious reached its most recent peak in 2013. Although the number of Catholics in the country peaked in 2013, it was up in 2016 relative to 2006. The number of parishes increased from 123 in 2006 to 127 in 2013 and 130 in 2016.

Guidance to Priests

In the midst of establishing new parishes, Cardinal Ranjith explained his understanding of the role of the priest. Citing Pastores Dabo Vobis, the cardinal characterizes the priest as a shepherd called to the “care of his people” so that they “never need to fear nor be dismayed.” Furthermore, “in the image of Jesus, the priest gives his capacity to love, to all those to whom he is sent especially to the weak, the sinful, the stubborn, the poor and the unloved ones, those sick or distraught and those who have lost all hope.” In Ranjith’s view, the priest must “give himself totally to the Church or the community to which he is sent,” such that “the Church and souls become his first interest, and with this concrete spirituality he becomes capable of loving the Universal Church and that part of it entrusted to him with a deep love of a husband for his wife.” Cardinal Ranjith understands priestly celibacy, as well as poverty and obedience, in this light — a way of loving the community “in the total and exclusive manner in which Jesus Christ her head and spouse loved.”

Lay Missionaries and Benedict XVI Cultural Institute

This is not to say that Cardinal Ranjith sees no role for the laity in spreading the gospel and manifesting the love of Christ. On the contrary, in the same speech, he announced the establishment of a Lay Missionaries Institute under the direction of a “competent priest director.” The institute would “call for volunteers and after having trained those selected, give them the mission cross at a solemn ceremony to be held at the Cathedral and send them in groups to work in far flung outstations, especially in the missionary region.” The missionaries would remain lay but would “consecrate themselves to live a life of chastity, poverty and obedience as well as an intense prayer life and service to the remotest communities and will take temporary promises or permanent promises.”Their work would be subject to periodic evaluation. Information about the current status of this project is not readily available, but the proposal alone indicates that Ranjith sees an important role for the laity in executing the Church’s mission.

In 2015, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco opened the Benedict XVI Cultural Institute in Negombo that Cardinal Ranjith had helped to found. The idea for the institute for tertiary education was born out of Ranjith’s discussions with Benedict XVI and their mutual concerns about syncretism regarding interreligious dialogue and theological experimentation in Asia.

2019 Islamist Bombings

The attacks on Easter Sunday 2019, which killed more than 250 people and seriously maimed hundreds of others, presented arguably Cardinal Ranjith’s greatest governing challenge to date. The cold-blooded bombings affected him deeply, and he was intensely moved by the suffering of the Sri Lankan faithful. Ranjith has frequently called for justice since the attacks, urging an inquiry and expressing frustration both at the lack of prevention prior to the attacks and an absence of investigative rigor after the atrocity. Responding to the concerns of his flock, he initially closed all churches in Sri Lanka for two weeks and then reopened them when the faithful asked for public Masses again. He was particularly concerned about the wounded and those left destitute on account of the attacks, especially 476 children who lost one or both parents.

Cardinal Ranjith’s governing style is never to decide anything unilaterally but only after consultation with experts. In leadership, he says, it is important to have dreams and “help others to feel it’s their dream, too” but “never try to impose your will on others.”⁵Forthcoming book interview with Roman Catholic Books Publishers.

Vocations

From 2012 to 2021, the number of diocesan priests increased from 291 to 373, although religious priests fell from 235 to 143. From 2012 to 2018, the number of seminarians more than doubled from 132 to 272.

TEACHING OFFICE

Religion versus Human-Rights Ideology

Cardinal Ranjith exercises the teaching office vigorously, not least in teaching that human-rights ideology should not take the place of religion.⁶The cardinal may have in mind, inter alia, an issue that he raised in 2012: “As we all know abortion is always a crime — it is murder and murder of a voiceless, defenseless human person even if that person is still in the fetal stage or appears deformed. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is categorical on this. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference will shortly come out in the open against any relaxation of the laws in Sri Lanka. When contacted the President did inform me that he will not allow any relaxation of the rules on this matter. But instigated and pushed by the United Nations Population Programme and other international agencies, some local women’s groups are agitating for this on the pretext of the enhancement of women’s rights. Western Nations in their greed to continue to possess over 75% of the world’s resources are telling us that there is not enough food to feed everyone — so we need to bring down our birth rates.” Forthcoming book interview with Roman Catholic Books Publishers. In his view, “with regard to the essentially non-religious nature of the state, human rights as a common platform has its own role to play.” If, however, “religion is truly practiced, it could take us to achieve levels of justice, going even beyond the expectations of human rights and thus need not be such an issue for our Catholic community.”⁷The cardinal has not been more specific regarding this claim. For example, he has not discussed how, if at all, either human rights or religion would guide immigration policy. Thus, the Catholic faithful should “practice their faith truthfully, avoiding turning religious values into something that is ephemeral.”

Holy Scripture

On the inerrancy of Scripture, Cardinal Ranjith observes that one threat to practicing the Faith truthfully is “the [Industrial Revolution-era] ascendance of biblical criticism (relativizing, to a certain extent, the Holy Scriptures), which in turn had negative influences on theology, generating a questioning attitude about the objectivity of established truth and the usefulness of defending ecclesial traditions and institutions.” The cardinal believes that the Second Vatican Council was called to respond to this threat, as well as “the emergence of Marxism and positivism.” He has praised the Council for producing such beautiful theological and pastoral reflections as Lumen Gentium, Dei Verbum, Gaudium et Spes, and Sacrosanctum Concilium.” By contrast, Cardinal Ranjith blames “tendencies  not necessarily connected to the orientations or recommendations of the documents of Vatican II” for “shak[ing] the foundations of ecclesial teaching and faith to a surprising extent.” He sees Vatican II as part of a continual process of necessary dialogue with the world in relation to “changing social patterns and life options that people make.”⁸Forthcoming book interview with Roman Catholic Books Publishers.

Educating Youth

Cardinal Ranjith strongly values the importance of teaching religion to children, and not just with regard to Catholicism. “Children should be given time to participate in [Buddhist] Dhamma schools and Sunday schools, or else there will be no enhancement in their spiritual traits.” Indeed, in the cardinal’s view, government should ban even private tutoring on Sunday mornings and Poya days (Buddhist/public holidays). On the other hand, government should not “allow politicians to interfere in school administration” but rather “ensure the independence of all education institutions” so that “such institutes [may] create a just and disciplined society.”

According to Cardinal Ranjith, parents have primary responsibility to instill good values in children, and he thinks that mothers are central, if not primary, in doing so. He laments that, more and more in Sri Lanka, “women go to work, leaving their children with others. They have to work because the cost of living is high. However, if one brings children into this world, they should be looked after and should be brought up in a proper manner.” He attributes the trend toward women working outside the home, at least in part, to parents not welcoming children as a blessing and people not valuing the work that women do in raising children. To address the latter problem, at least, Cardinal Ranjith thinks (citing St. John Paul II) that “a salary should be paid to non-working mothers who stay at home to look after their children.” Perhaps relatedly, in 2016, he preached to three thousand people about the gift of Mother Mary on the occasion celebrating the centennial of the first church dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes in the country. Ranjith noted that Jesus “realized he had to give his Mother to us to protect this church, guide the faithful and make us strong, because Jesus knew that Mother Mary did the same for him.”

Right-to-Life Issues

Among the primary values that should be practiced and taught to children is the value of human life. Cardinal Ranjith has said that “all children are born according to God’s will and no one is born outside His will.” Indeed, “even those who are differently-abled keep their parents together and play a role in ensuring well-being of their families.”⁹It seems that Cardinal Ranjith has not addressed euthanasia explicitly, but his stand in favor of the dignity of the “differently-abled” may suggest his opposition to the practice. The cardinal firmly denies abortion as a human right, affirming instead that “abortion is murder.”

He is naturally opposed to population control and rejects it as a solution to environmental challenges because it allows people to increase selfishness. “Exploitation of nature will continue,” he believes. Ranjith is also opposed to advocates of population control and contraception, such as economist Jeffrey Sachs, being invited to the Vatican.¹⁰Forthcoming book interview with Roman Catholic Books Publishers. He is vehemently against “ideological colonization,” which he sees as largely perpetrated by nongovernmental organizations and the European Union.

Death Penalty

Cardinal Ranjith has taught generally that “human life is a precious thing,” and “we can never agree to kill someone.” Nevertheless, in July 2018, he supported “a limited application of the death penalty to certain types of prisoners.” That is, “if there are prisoners who engage in drug importation and distribution or in the perpetration of violence through the underworld causing death to others, one needs to reconsider that practice and implement whatever punishment has been received by them through the Courts of Law.” He argued that, if “credible witnesses and solid facts” establish that people in prison are organizing “gruesome crimes,” then they “could be considered as having forfeited their own right to life,” for “such activities cause death to other people.”¹¹“The cardinal added that if he had been warned that Catholic Churches could be bombed on Easter Sunday, he would have canceled Sunday Masses, ‘because, for me, the most important thing is human life. Human beings, they are our treasure.’ ‘I would have canceled even the holy week itself,’ Ranjith told Radio Canada.”

Cardinal Ranjith’s remarks on the death penalty immediately preceded Pope Francis’ August 2018 change in the Catechism regarding capital punishment, but followed public comments by the pope criticizing the death penalty. Ranjith acknowledged, “The Holy Father Pope Francis has, in fact, not accepted the death penalty, which is also my own position invariably. I am not for a generalized return of capital punishment. It should be the last option, if at all.” The cardinal cited the 1997 Catechism, paragraph 2267, as support for his position. It remains unclear how he interprets the pope’s change to the Catechism or how that change affects his view on executing certain types of prisoners.

Amoris Laetitia

Cardinal Ranjith has sought to read Amoris Laetitia with an orthodox interpretation. Prior to Amoris Laetitia, the cardinal held that, according to the “religious teachings and beliefs of the Catholic Church, marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman. God’s Word says that man and woman shall unite in marriage and procreate, which is also the natural order.” Moreover, the cardinal affirmed, “in that light, lesbian and homosexual unions cannot be allowed. These people could be defective and cannot overcome this problem due to shortcomings in their conduct and upbringing. While we must treat people facing this problem with empathy, we cannot allow them to be married.”¹²The cardinal seems not to have spoken directly on whether men who experience same-sex attraction should be allowed in the seminary. Cultural opposition to homosexual acts in Sri Lanka may make this question less salient there. The cardinal had made no public comment on divorce or reception of Holy Communion by those living contrary to Church teaching on marriage and sexuality.

In an interview about Amoris Laetitia, Cardinal Ranjith maintained that marriage is, continues to be, indissoluble:

That is what Jesus said, and the ethics of Jesus Christ are very strict, even though he was a very compassionate man, a very compassionate God, who loved the sinner, who went looking for the sinner. . . . He had very strict rules on family life, marriage, love. And so this is something that we have to preserve, but that doesn’t mean that there cannot be certain questions on which the Holy Father can express views that may open a dialogue and a discussion in order to ascertain what is the procedure or what steps we can take. . . .

Necessarily all these things have to be understood in the light of the teaching of Jesus Christ and in the light of the tradition of the Church, which teaches very strongly about the indissolubility of marriage and about various cases of annulments and other things The documents of the Church pinpoint what those cases are, and then we can find out various strategies to face this challenge without having to whittle down the basic doctrine of the Church on the indissolubility of marriage. That’s what we should do, instead of rousing up a hornet’s nest and falling into a trap of the modern world to divide us.

Specifically about Amoris Laetitia, Cardinal Ranjith thinks, “you can’t say that everything is not good; neither can you say that everything is perfect.” More broadly, regarding Church and papal teaching, Cardinal Ranjith has emphasized that “not all [documents and statements] have the same value. In the Church, there is a hierarchy of values for these documents and these statements.” In response to papal statements, “while we remain strongly loyal to the Holy Father, we can open up a discussion, and there’s nothing wrong with opening up a discussion or a study.” On the other hand, in the cardinal’s view, the pope may form a commission, take the minority position, and still end up making a statement which becomes “a kind of ex cathedra [statement].” As an example of the latter, Ranjith mentioned Pope Paul VI’s “not accept[ing] contraception” in Humanae Vitae.

The cardinal believes that the dubia cardinals “had a point” in their attempt to elicit clarification from Pope Francis on this contentious part of Amoris Laetitia, but he would have preferred it if confrontation had been avoided and they had sat down together and discussed and studied the matter.¹³Forthcoming book interview with Roman Catholic Books Publishers. The cardinal also does not think that appealing to the natural law is enough when it comes to defending marriage; rather, he stresses the importance of speaking about the beauty and spirituality of married life.¹⁴Forthcoming book interview with Roman Catholic Books Publishers.

Pope Francis

Regarding Pope Francis, Cardinal Ranjith is a staunch supporter of his outreach to the poor and to those on the periphery.¹⁵Forthcoming book interview with Roman Catholic Books Publishers. More generally, he has said it is “correct that we defend him and we stand with him — in spite of his human weaknesses. Everybody is weak. All of us are weak. In fact, Simon Peter himself was weak. Always I believe that God gives us the successor of Peter that is most suitable for the time in which he is given and by circumstances that we cannot explain always.” These views are consistent with the cardinal’s response to a perceived “rebellion” against Pope Benedict XVI’s authorization of the Tridentine Rite in 2007. He said: “I invite all, particularly the Shepherds, to obey the Pope, who is the Successor of Peter. The Bishops, in particular, have sworn fidelity to the Pontiff: may they be coherent and faithful to their commitment.”

Cardinal Ranjith’s loyalty to the pope does not appear to be driven by any sense of personal ambition. After he gave qualified support in 2018 for capital punishment of certain prisoners responsible for the deaths of others , it was put to him whether this position had ruined his chances to become “the Third World’s first South Asian Pope.” His Eminence replied: “I only have to state that I am hardly anyone worthy of such responsibilities for which God will choose in His own time someone far better than me.” He has had a good rapport with Pope Francis, who values Ranjith’s frankness, and they have known each other since Ranjith’s time at Propaganda Fide.

Environmental Concern

Cardinal Ranjith has been vocal about environmental issues and climate change in Sri Lanka. He has criticized slow progress in renewable energy and taken a stand against the development of coal power in Sri Lanka, highlighting the negative environmental impacts of fossil fuels. In 2021, he took legal action against the owner of a ship that caused an environmental disaster off the coast of Sri Lanka, demonstrating his commitment to protecting the environment. He also called on the Sri Lankan government to enact tougher laws to protect the country’s forests, recognizing the importance of preserving natural habitats. The Cardinal has referred to environmental pollution as “today’s worse cancer,” emphasizing the severity of the issue and its impact on human health. He has shown support for Pope Francis’ 2015 environmental encyclical Laudato Si’ and his actions and statements align with the document and its call to care and protect “our common home.”

Reform of the Roman Curia

Ranjith generally welcomed the changes the Pope made through his new apostolic constitution for the Roman Curia, Praedicate Evangelium (Preach the Gospel). He regarded them as “very good” but, he added, real reform won’t be achieved “unless that attitude inside the heart of each person changes.”  As a former official at the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples from 2001 to 2004, he said that making the dicastery the second highest in the Roman Curia and therefore placing evangelization at the center was “a very good move” and that such a reform was needed to accommodate the “needs of the times,” ones which are “terrible with regard to the faith.”

German Synodal Way

Cardinal Ranjith said in 2022 that he “cannot accept” what was happening with the Synodal Way. He said the Church is a “universal fraternity” and the German Church cannot “answer for all our problems in the whole world.”  The controversies caused by the Synodal Path “must be a burden to the Holy Father,” he said, but added that, as shepherds, it is the task of bishops to not only be open and listen, but also to “go in front” and face the challenges, “even if we are killed in the process. It’s difficult, but we have to pray, because we are not doing something on our own, there’s the bigger player, the Lord himself,” he said.

Islam

Speaking in November 2017, eighteen months before the church bombings on Easter Sunday 2019, Cardinal Ranjith put Islamist extremism down to two main reasons: first, it was a “reaction to Western secularism and its turning away from God” and second, a “lack of resolution of the Palestinian problem.”¹⁶Forthcoming book interview with Roman Catholic Books Publishers. One month after the attacks, he said he had not changed his position, saying secularism “seeks to marginalize” those with religious beliefs “and that is not acceptable, especially to the Muslims. Therefore, the Muslims get radicalized more and more, the more that secularism tends to marginalize religion.” On the one-year anniversary of the attacks, Cardinal Ranjith offered forgiveness to the six jihadist youths, calling them “misguided” and saying “we meditated on Christ’s teachings and loved them, forgave them and had pity on them. We did not hate them and return them the violence.”

Coronavirus

In comments about the coronavirus in March 2020, Cardinal Ranjith said he was inclined to believe the theory that COVID-19 was a man-made virus concocted in a laboratory rather than originating from animal-human contact. He urged the United Nations to open an investigation and bring the “perpetrators to trial for genocide.” At the time of publication, debate was continuing on whether or not the disease originated in a lab and the possibility had not been completely ruled out.

ROLE IN SRI LANKAN POLITICS

Malcolm Ranjith, who has been a national figure in Sri Lanka since 2009, has been ever willing to criticize the country’s rulers when he believes it warrants it.

At the time of his elevation to cardinal in 2010, some criticized Ranjith for being too close to the government. He would face a similar charge in 2014, when President Rajapaksa, in the midst of a hard reelection campaign, appointed Cardinal Ranjith’s niece to a position in the Sri Lankan embassy in Paris, allegedly without her having the typical qualifications. There was no allegation that the cardinal had lobbied for her appointment.

At the time of Ranjith’s return to Sri Lanka to serve as Colombo’s archbishop, Mahinda Rajapaksa was the democratically elected president of a country composed of Buddhists (70 percent), Hindus (12 percent), Muslims (10 percent), Catholics (6 percent), non-Catholic Christians (1 percent), and other religious minorities. A few months before Cardinal Ranjith arrived, Rajapaksa declared a total military victory over Tamil Hindu rebels who had been fighting a civil war for twenty-five years. Both sides had been accused of human-rights violations.

The cardinal “urged the government to quickly resettle civilians held in military-run camps” and “appeared before the country’s Reconciliation Commission with suggestions to promote harmony between the Sinhalese and minority Tamil communities.”According to a WikiLeaks cable, the cardinal told the U.S. ambassador that these positions earned him criticism and death threats from the Buddhist Right. The cardinal also reportedly said that Rajapaksa was a good man who should not be pressed too hard for alleged human-rights violations, lest that pressure induce destabilized democracy, a revolution, or a coup. Cardinal Ranjith has denied the accuracy of the WikiLeaks cable.

However close the cardinal was to the Rajapaksa government (which lost power from 2015 until 2019, when Rajapaksa’s brother Gotabaya became president, and Mahinda was appointed prime minister), he sometimes publicly challenged that government. First, he boycotted government functions in protest of the arrest of a Missionary of Charity sister for alleged child trafficking. The sister was released two weeks later. Second, in 2012, Cardinal Ranjith joined other religious leaders in condemning the impeachment of Sri Lanka’s chief justice as a threat to the rule of law. Reportedly, the cardinal’s involvement in this criticism surprised the Rajapaksa government; however, the chief justice was not reinstated until the next administration. Finally, in 2013, His Eminence warned the government and the Tamil National Alliance that foreign intervention would result if they did not find a way to address rights abuses and achieve reconciliation.

In a prominent and controversial move, in 2018 the cardinal supported the government’s plans to implement death sentences against drug offenders. His Eminence clarified that his support for the government’s action was dependent on a certain understanding of the action as limited in a way that is consistent, in his view, with Catholic teaching.

As detailed above, he has been forthright in calling the government to account over the 2019 Easter Sunday terrorist attacks on churches, the worst terrorist attack on Sri Lankan soil. In March 2020, he pledged to lead public protests if the current government failed to produce a credible report on the bombings, saying questions about the previous government’s inaction ahead of the attacks remained unanswered. In 2022, he restated his firm belief that the government was covering up its responsibility for the atrocity that killed 290 people and injured many others. He alleged in particular links between ruling President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the group behind the suicide bombers.¹⁷Ranjith has claimed the atrocities were orchestrated to provoke violence between the Sinhalese people and Muslims, and generate Islamophobia ahead of a general election six months later that brought Rajapaksa to power. He has also sought international assistance in the quest for justice.

In 2024, five years after the bombings, justice continued to remain elusive, despite numerous investigative reports and commissions, and the truth behind the attacks and the extent of the conspiracy remained shrouded in ambiguity.

Cardinal Ranjith also privately criticized the government in 2018. According to the Colombo Telegraph (which tends toward a secular-internationalist view), he rebuked the Christian Affairs minister, a Catholic, for not preventing an international summit of Jehovah’s Witnesses from taking place in Sri Lanka. The minister denied the story — “no such incident took place and the entire report is a figment of the imagination of the author” — but the paper stood by its claim, citing affirmation by confidential sources.

Religious Liberty

Cardinal Ranjith has taken notable stands on religious liberty questions. In 2006, while serving in Rome, he responded carefully to an anti-conversion law under consideration in Sri Lanka, not condemning it, but rather calling it “a question debated at a national level” and emphasizing that “we have no desire to subvert the religious and cultural traditions to which the majority of the people of Sri Lanka belong.” In 2007, he spoke generally against state attempts in Asia to control the Catholic Church, either by state-sponsored churches or by “restrictions and controls indirectly placed on the Catholic Church.” As archbishop of Colombo, however, Cardinal Ranjith has made common cause with the Buddhist majority against what seem to be “massive and well-funded proselytism campaigns enacted in Sri Lanka by evangelical groups connected to the global Pentecostal networks” (not the cardinal’s words). In 2011, he proposed a government-backed interreligious committee to monitor and sanction aggressive evangelical efforts — especially those involving financial incentives — and to reconcile religious communities. In 2017, the cardinal advocated a state ban on forcible conversions.

In 2016, Cardinal Ranjith supported preservation of the constitutional priority of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Some Sri Lankan Catholics opposed this position. The cardinal, for his part, thought the effort to remove the constitutional provision was a move toward the atheistic secularization of Sri Lanka. On another occasion, Cardinal Ranjith has supported a different sort of secularization. In that case, he opposed “racial and religious ideologies” and advocated banning political parties that promote such ideologies.¹⁸“Holy Father, our nation blessed by the teachings of the great world religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity does possess the moral and spiritual strength and nobility needed to generate such peace but we will all need to make that leap towards each other with a genuine spirit of reconciliation, trust and a sense of reciprocity.” It seems that the cardinal has not moved beyond this claim regarding the conditions for temporal peace (a pressing matter in the wake of the long civil war in Sri Lanka) to address explicitly in English whether all human persons will reach heaven or all religions can guide persons to heaven. To that question, however, it may be telling that he continues to promote missionary work.

After the Easter Sunday 2019 church bombings, Cardinal Ranjith met with ambassadors of Islamic countries, who expressed their condolences over the deadly suicide bombings and assured him, he said, that there was “no connection to Islam.” The cardinal said after the meeting, “We are very happy and thankful to the ambassadors of the Islamic countries for having coming [sic] here to express their solidarity with us.” He also called on Sri Lanka’s government to punish “mercilessly” those responsible “because only animals can behave like that.” He later said it was an “initial reaction,” that he did not “intend to hurt animals or animal lovers” but that he still hoped the perpetrators would be dealt with seriously and that justice would be served.

Finally, when he was asked if he agrees with a comment made by a Tamil National Alliance MP that the tragedy was a result of minority rights’ being suppressed, Cardinal Ranjith said, “I don’t think this incident was because of any suppression of minority rights. These politicians should not try to bring their political views to the fore using this incident. This atrocity was unleashed by a group of misguided youth who were manipulated by an international terror organization.”

Other Criticisms of Sri Lanka’s Rulers

In 2022, the cardinal again strongly criticized the government, this time for completely mismanag[ing] the entire economy.”¹⁹Ranjith attributed the economic crisis that year to a collapse in the tourist industry because of COVID-19 restrictions, as well as corruption and “huge debt that successive governments had collected or inherited.” Rising fuel costs due to the war in Ukraine also exacerbated the problems, as well as what he called the ruling government’s “irrational” decision to stop fertilizer imports into the country, completely destroying its agrarian economy in the process.

Ranjith’s relationship with the current president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, appears to be strained and adversarial, particularly in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday attacks.

A critic of the cardinal called him “a realist,” a “true Christian” who “renders unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.” In the realm of things that are Caesar’s, he has emphasized that “the ownership of the country is with the people”; those in political power are, in his view, “caretakers.”

Ranjith takes a particularly negative view of Sri Lanka’s colonial history, referring to the former British rulers of then-Ceylon as “occupiers.” He blames the British for favoring minority ethnic groups against the majority because the majority refused to cooperate with the “British occupying force.”

• 1
  A graviora delicta — a “more serious crime” — is an “external violation against faith and morals, or in the celebration of the sacraments The Church considers such violations so serious that there is a special process to handle them.”
• 2
  Forthcoming book interview with Roman Catholic Books Publishers (2025).
• 3
  The archdiocese had 341 diocesan priests in 2016, up from 298 in 2013 and 255 in 2006.
• 4
  The number of women religious reached its most recent peak in 2013. Although the number of Catholics in the country peaked in 2013, it was up in 2016 relative to 2006. The number of parishes increased from 123 in 2006 to 127 in 2013 and 130 in 2016.
• 5
  Forthcoming book interview with Roman Catholic Books Publishers.
• 6
  The cardinal may have in mind, inter alia, an issue that he raised in 2012: “As we all know abortion is always a crime — it is murder and murder of a voiceless, defenseless human person even if that person is still in the fetal stage or appears deformed. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is categorical on this. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference will shortly come out in the open against any relaxation of the laws in Sri Lanka. When contacted the President did inform me that he will not allow any relaxation of the rules on this matter. But instigated and pushed by the United Nations Population Programme and other international agencies, some local women’s groups are agitating for this on the pretext of the enhancement of women’s rights. Western Nations in their greed to continue to possess over 75% of the world’s resources are telling us that there is not enough food to feed everyone — so we need to bring down our birth rates.” Forthcoming book interview with Roman Catholic Books Publishers.
• 7
  The cardinal has not been more specific regarding this claim. For example, he has not discussed how, if at all, either human rights or religion would guide immigration policy.
• 8
  Forthcoming book interview with Roman Catholic Books Publishers.
• 9
  It seems that Cardinal Ranjith has not addressed euthanasia explicitly, but his stand in favor of the dignity of the “differently-abled” may suggest his opposition to the practice.
• 10
  Forthcoming book interview with Roman Catholic Books Publishers.
• 11
  “The cardinal added that if he had been warned that Catholic Churches could be bombed on Easter Sunday, he would have canceled Sunday Masses, ‘because, for me, the most important thing is human life. Human beings, they are our treasure.’ ‘I would have canceled even the holy week itself,’ Ranjith told Radio Canada.”
• 12
  The cardinal seems not to have spoken directly on whether men who experience same-sex attraction should be allowed in the seminary. Cultural opposition to homosexual acts in Sri Lanka may make this question less salient there.
• 13
  Forthcoming book interview with Roman Catholic Books Publishers.
• 14
  Forthcoming book interview with Roman Catholic Books Publishers.
• 15
  Forthcoming book interview with Roman Catholic Books Publishers.
• 16
  Forthcoming book interview with Roman Catholic Books Publishers.
• 17
  Ranjith has claimed the atrocities were orchestrated to provoke violence between the Sinhalese people and Muslims, and generate Islamophobia ahead of a general election six months later that brought Rajapaksa to power.
• 18
  “Holy Father, our nation blessed by the teachings of the great world religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity does possess the moral and spiritual strength and nobility needed to generate such peace but we will all need to make that leap towards each other with a genuine spirit of reconciliation, trust and a sense of reciprocity.” It seems that the cardinal has not moved beyond this claim regarding the conditions for temporal peace (a pressing matter in the wake of the long civil war in Sri Lanka) to address explicitly in English whether all human persons will reach heaven or all religions can guide persons to heaven. To that question, however, it may be telling that he continues to promote missionary work.
• 19
  Ranjith attributed the economic crisis that year to a collapse in the tourist industry because of COVID-19 restrictions, as well as corruption and “huge debt that successive governments had collected or inherited.” Rising fuel costs due to the war in Ukraine also exacerbated the problems, as well as what he called the ruling government’s “irrational” decision to stop fertilizer imports into the country, completely destroying its agrarian economy in the process.