Archbishop Ranjith calls for more Christianity teachers

(July 22, 2010) Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith of Colombo has appealed to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa to recruit more Catholic teachers to teach Christianity in government schools. Many rural schools lack even a single Catholic teacher, Archbishop Ranjith told President Rajapaksa at a July 15 meeting with priests involved in the education sector. In some schools, Catholic children study Buddhism as an alternative to Christianity, according to some teachers in government-run schools. Father Ranjith Madurawala, general manager for Catholic schools in the Colombo archdiocese, who also met the president, told that 1,000 teachers are urgently needed to teach Christianity. Catholic students have the same rights as other students with regard to free education and the right to the religious studies of their choice, he said. “The president promised to settle the teacher problem as soon as possible,” Father Madurawala confirmed. Following the nationalization of Church-run schools in 1956, priests and nuns were forced out of the schools although the Church still operates 27 prestigious Catholic schools in the archdiocese. During the meeting with Rajapaksa, the clergy also drew his attention to the halted construction of Our Lady Rosa Mystica Church in the outskirts of Colombo and the President promised to look into it.