The trust deficit between the State and the Catholic Church over the investigations into the 2019 Easter Sunday bombing continues to widen, with The Minister of Public Security Tiran Alles yesterday (23) accusing Colombo Archbishop, Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith of acting with a “different agenda” on criticising the Government.
Responding to comments made by Cardinal Ranjith during the fourth anniversary of the bombings about the lack of credibility of multiple investigations into the deadly incident carried out by a group of extremist, Minister Alles told The Daily Morning that the he does not care about the allegations which were made by the former, due to Cardinal Ranjith allegedly acting with a “different agenda” of attacking the Government and politicians.
Speaking at an event to mark the fourth anniversary of the terror attacks, Cardinal Ranjith claimed on 21 April that the Government is not working to serve justice to the victims of the terror attacks and their families, and is instead attempting to protect those who are responsible for the same.
“The former and current Governments are focused on completely burying the memories of the terror attacks. Various investigations and reports of the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) and the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) on the incident prove that there was a political conspiracy behind it," he said.
When contacted by The Daily Morning to inquire about the allegations made by the Archbishop, Alles said that he (Archbishop) was making such statements with a “different agenda”. "I do not think it is the Catholic Church that says these things, but it is Cardinal Ranjith who is doing this. From what I can see, even if the whole thing (progress of related-investigations) is presented to him, he will continue to do this. I do not think that he wants to know the actual situation and what actually happened. He has a different agenda of attacking the Government and politicians. So, I do not care about what the Cardinal says," Alles told The Daily Morning.
He also said that he did not believe that the allegations made by Cardinal Ranjith are the views of the Catholic Church. "I do not think that it is the Church that says these things. It is the Cardinal who is doing it. He had said that he was not sure whether the President (Ranil Wickremesinghe) and the Public Security Minister (Alles) were genuine about this issue. He is making all these statements even without having a discussion with us, or looking into the matter properly. That is why I say that he has a different agenda."
When asked about the request made by the Public Security Ministry to explain the status of the investigation to the Catholic Church, Alles said that he had requested the Catholic Bishops Conference of Sri Lanka (CBCSL) for an appointment to make a presentation of the progress of the related investigations.
"I have made a request to the CBCSL. If they give an appointment, I will do a complete presentation to all Bishops on the investigations that have been carried out so far. Then they can engage themselves in investigations and see what is right and what is wrong," he said.
When contacted by The Daily Morning, the Church emphasised that the views expressed by Cardinal Ranjith regarding the Easter Sunday terror attacks and related investigations are those of the Church too.
"These terror attacks mainly took place in Churches in the Western Province (St. Anthony's Church in Kochchikade and St. Sebastian's Church in Katuwapitiya were two among several other targets of the terror attacks). Therefore, the Archbishop has the authority to make statements on this matter. That is what he is doing. If he says something about this, that is the view of the Church too," the National Director of Communications of the CBCSL, Fr. Jude Chrishantha Fernando stressed.
Commenting on the investigations in the bombing, Fr. Fernando stated that, having been deceived by the Governments led by three Presidents, the Church is not ready to believe what Minister Alles says.
"We have been deceived by three Governments for four years. When the trust is broken in that way, it is very difficult for it to be rebuilt. That is why Cardinal Ranjith is not meeting any politicians. He is not ready to meet politicians just because they (politicians) need to. Meeting him is not the only way that the Government has to show that they are working to serve justice to us. Instead, they should do something positive and show us. The Archbishop will then consider meeting them," Fr. Fernando stated.
On the Easter Sunday which fell on 21 April 2019, three churches (St. Sebastian’s Church in Katuwapitiya, St. Anthony’s Church in Kochchikade, and Zion Church in Batticaloa) and three luxury hotels in Colombo (Cinnamon Grand, The Kingsbury Colombo, and Shangri-La Hotel, Colombo) were targeted in a series of co-ordinated extremist terror suicide bombings. Later that day, another two bomb explosions took place at a house in Dematagoda and Tropical Inn Lodge in Dehiwala. A total of 269 people were killed in the bombings, including at least 45 foreign nationals, while at least 500 were injured.