Pope Francis puts on a Buddhist robe

Philip Pullella, Frank Jack Daniel, Shihar Aneez (Colombo), Ranga Sirilal (Madhu), Alison Williams (ed.) (uk.reuters.com, 1/13/15); Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Pope Francis wears a saffron-colored Buddhist robe as he attends the Inter-religious Encounter at the Bmich in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Jan. 13, 2015 (Stefano Rellandini /Reuters).

 

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Pope Francis paid a surprise visit to a Buddhist temple on [Jan. 13, 2015], capping a trip to [predominantly Buddhist] Sri Lanka where he told huge crowds that religions must unite to heal the country’s war wounds.

Pope John Paul II with Thai Buddhists

The only other visit by a pope to a Buddhist temple was made by Pope John Paul during a trip to [Buddhist] Thailand in 1984.

 

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the pope briefly stopped at Colombo’s Mahabodhi Temple to meet Ven. Banagila Upatissa, a Buddhist leader who had invited him when they met on Tuesday at an inter-religious meeting.

“The pope listened with great respect” as the Theravada Buddhist monks were singing and [chanting], Lombardi said. He said that in honor of the occasion, the monks opened a sacred container holding precious Buddhist relics which is normally unsealed only once a year. 

 

  

Interesting religion you have here, monks.

The spokesman said that during the pope’s 20-minute visit, which was not on his schedule, Pope Francis listened intently as the monks explained aspects of Buddhism in a room where there was a statue of the Buddha.

Francis, who has made inter-religious dialogue a plank of his papacy, has already been to mosques during trips to Istanbul and Jerusalem.

• Sri Lanka releases 572 prisoners to mark pope's visit

During his two-day trip the pope has stressed the role of religion to help reconciliation after the 26-year civil war that ended in 2009 and killed up to 100,000 people. Sri Lanka is about:

• 70 percent Theravada Buddhist
• 13 percent Hindu (Tamil)
• 10 percent Muslim (like its predominantly Muslim neighbor the Maldives)
• 7 percent Catholic (from Portuguese missionary work)
• .01 percent or less aboriginal Nagas.

Earlier, Pope Francis gave Sri Lanka its first saint at a seafront mass for more than half a million people in Colombo, the capital, calling 17th century missionary Joseph Vaz a model of reconciliation. 

 

Virg (Kwan) Yin Mary, French art

He held up Saint Vaz as an example of tolerance as Sri Lanka recovers from the war between mainly Sinhalese Buddhists and Tamil Hindus (which was the longest running civil war in Asia).

Vaz was born in 1651 in India’s Goa, then a Portuguese colony. He traveled south [to Sri Lanka, the island off the tip of India] at the age of 36, dressed as a beggar after hearing about the persecution of Catholics by the Dutch. He worked for years under the protection of a Buddhist king.

Statue of Mary

Female Jesus=Church Goddess

Also on [Jan. 13, 015], Pope Francis flew by helicopter to Madhu, in the Hindu north of the island (closest to the tip of Tamil Nadu, India), to preach forgiveness for the “evil” committed in the war and visit a Catholic shrine that was shelled.

It was the first visit by a pope to the predominantly Hindu region that contains a large Catholic minority and was the scene of fierce fighting between the Sri Lankan Army and Tamil Tiger separatist rebels seeking an autonomous homeland they called Eelam. 

 

In a prayer at the Church of Our Lady of Madhu, Pope Francis denounced the conflict that “tore open the heart” of Sri Lanka and drove home the central message of his two-day trip: Religions need to work together to heal the wounds of war.

“May all people here find inspiration and strength to build a future of reconciliation, justice, and peace for all the children of this beloved land,” he said in English.

Feminine icons of the Church

The shrine containing a 400-year old statue of Mary is the most venerated Catholic site on the island.

It is also visited by followers of other religions but was kept out of bounds for years by fighting.

After landing, the pope drove to the shrine in an open jeep, leaning out frequently to touch the heads of the faithful lining the roads, many using parasols for shade. 

Virg Yin, Goddess of Compassion, Sri Lanka

In 1999, shells slammed into the church, killing some 40 people who had sought refuge there. Since the end of the war, the north has undergone reconstruction, but divisions still run deep. The region gets few visits from world leaders.

The Vatican also said former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who invited the pope to make the visit to the country but was defeated in [the 2015] election last week, paid a courtesy call to the pontiff at the Vatican embassy where he is staying. More

Christianity in Buddhist/Hindu Sri Lanka?

Portuguese Missionary St. Francis Xavier

Christianity in Sri Lanka is not well known before the 16th century although some local traditions claim that Saint Thomas the Apostle was active in the island (Christianity in Sri Lanka on Discover Sri Lanka).

The Portuguese missionaries from India, especially under the authority of Saint Francis Xavier, are known to have brought Roman Catholicism to the [Sri Lankan Hindu] Kingdom of Jaffna, which comprised the northern peninsula of Sri Lanka (Short account of...Sanctuary of Our Lady of Madhu, Mannar Diocese Webpage).

The newly converted Christians were under persecution under both the king of Jaffna (Ibid.) and the Dutch (Ceylon, Catholic Encyclopedia). During this time the Catholics regrouped to form a church in Mantai installing a statue of Our Lady of Good Health in a shrine. 

The Mary shrine in Madhu

The Dutch invasion and the persecution of the Catholic Church in 1670 (Ibid.), led to 20 Catholic families fleeing from Mantai, along with the statue of Mary in that church to a safer locale of Madhu (Fr. S.K. Devarajah, Monument of miracles, Sunday Times, Sri Lanka).

About the same time another 700 Catholics migrated from the Jaffna peninsula into Wanni forests. When these two communities met in Madhu, they installed a new shrine with the statue. More

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