Priests’ Silver Jubilee Fund for Catholic Teachers

August 2, 2011: A group of priests in Sri Lanka, each with more than 25 years’ experience opened a fund to enhance the lives of volunteer Catholic teachers in government run schools while celebrating indigenous clergy day on July 31.
Hundreds of volunteer teachers work in government-run schools to teach Christianity to Catholic students in the archdiocese for an allowance of one thousand rupees (US$10) from the archdiocesan office of education.
But church sources say many rural schools lack even a single Catholic teacher. In some schools, Catholic children study Buddhism as an alternative to Christianity. A thousand teachers are urgently needed to teach Christianity but the government has not appointed any yet.
Father Robinson Wijesinghe, Vatican Diplomatic Counselor in Rome, said his priestly ordination group had opened a Silver Jubilee Fund to assist volunteer teachers financially.