Condemned priest is restored to
church
By PAMELA SCHAEFFER
NCR Staff
In a rare and unexpected reversal, church officials have rescinded
the excommunication of Oblate Fr. Tissa Balasuriya a little more than a year
after he was formally charged with heresy.
The reconciliation ends a bitter, high-profile standoff in which
Balasuriya, 73, has repeatedly denounced Vatican officials for refusing to
openly discuss his theological views and for making demands he regarded as
irregular and unjust.
In a telephone interview with NCR from his Center for
Society and Religion in Sri Lanka, Balasuriya said the reconciliation, formally
declared Jan. 15, had been grounded in a decent and honorable
agreement.
I wanted all persons to be respected in their dignity.
he said. The struggle for human rights in the church is one of our
objectives.
Balasuriyas excommunication last January -- the harshest
penalty in memory to be levied against a theologian -- made him an
international cause célèbre. The penalty stemmed from
Balasuriyas 1990 book Mary and Human Liberation, which contains
views on original sin and other matters that church officials have denounced as
heretical.
The reconciliation was the result of a compromise hammered out in
six days of negotiations involving Balasuriya, Oblate theologians from Sri
Lanka chosen by him, and a delegation of top Oblate officials from Rome.
Vatican approval was gained through communications by telephone
and fax with Rome on the final day of negotiations, according to Oblate Fr.
Thomas Singer, an American who played a key role as facilitator.
The Vatican rescinded its previous demand that Balasuriya retract
his theological views and that he sign a profession of faith written
exclusively for him.
Instead, at a reconciliation ceremony he read a
profession of faith composed by Pope Paul VI -- not using a caveat that the
Vatican had previously found objectionable. (See entry under May 1996 in
chronology on this page.)
For his part, Balasuriya, without admitting doctrinal error,
acknowledged perceptions of error and agreed to submit all future
writings to his bishops for the imprimatur.
In a statement signed by him and scheduled to be published in the
national Catholic newspaper of Sri Lanka on Jan. 22, he said that serious
ambiguities and doctrinal errors were perceived in his writings. He said
he regretted the harm such perceptions had caused.
Two official documents were issued: a Decree of
Reconciliation from the archbishop of Colombo, Sri Lanka, citing
authorization of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and
the statement of reconciliation signed by Balasuriya and nine
Oblate officials. The list is headed by Fr. Marcello Zago, Rome-based superior
general of the Oblate religious order. Zago was among four Oblate officials who
traveled to Sri Lanka for the discussions.
Balasuriya noted in his statement that the two texts are worded
differently but that both express the same faith of the church.
The reconciliation ceremony was held in the chapel at the
residence of Archbishop Nicholas Marcus Fernando, archbishop of Colombo.
Archbishop Osvaldo Padilla, papal delegate to Sri Lanka, represented the
Vatican.
Unlike other theologians who have been censured during the papacy
of Pope John Paul II, such as Fr. Hans Küng of Germany and Fr. Charles
Curran of the United States, Balasuriya apparently remains a Catholic
theologian in the Vaticans eyes.
Balasuriya told NCR that during the negotiations he had
insisted that the duty of a theologian is to bear witness and at the same
time to keep to the magisterium. He has repeatedly said that his mission
is to make Christian teachings accessible in Sri Lanka, where Christians make
up only about 8 percent of a predominantly Buddhist population.
Balasuriya said he was satisfied with the provision that he submit
his writings for an imprimatur because it was according to canon
law and therefore not an irregular demand. However, in his published
statement he said that he was accepting terms of the compromise even though he
had hoped for more dialogue with church officials.
Balasuriya told NCR that he attributed the positive results
of the negotiations first of all to the grace of God and the Spirit
operating and secondly to immense pressure from all over the world.
I thank all those who in fidelity prayed and appealed for justice and
reconciliation, he said.
He added, Human rights groups, the mass media, the Internet,
E-mail -- these are ways in which the Holy Spirit operates today. This is a new
reality in the life of the church.
In a telephone interview, Singer, the Oblate vicar general of the
central U.S. province, said he had used the Prayer of St. Francis as a theme
for meditation throughout the six days. One of the lessons many of us
ought to learn is that dialogue takes time, effort, patience,
perseverance, said Singer, who is based in Minneapolis. I think we
modeled that -- and we got lucky. It paid off.
Zago had come to the process with guidelines from the Vatican, he
said. I think all the parties were open, sincere and wanted
reconciliation.
Singer said Balasuriya appeared to deeply appreciate the
opportunity to be heard by Oblate officials. Singer recalled that after the
reconciliation ceremony, Zago had asked Balasuriya if there were anything he
wanted to add. I think of the Good Shepherd, Balasuriya told Zago,
who oversees some 5,000 Oblates around the world. In this case, you left
your 5,000 to come after me.
On Jan. 15, Fr. Bernard Quintus, Oblate provincial in Sri Lanka,
praised the process in a letter to Oblates of his region. The listening
ear accorded him by brother Oblates from the highest level of authority in the
congregation was a clear sign of the love, respect and deep esteem they have
for Balasuriya, Quintus wrote. It was also an expression of their
recognition of the many years of dedicated and generous service rendered by
him.
>Fr. Charles Curran, himself censured by the Vatican in 1986,
said he considered the Vatican turnaround to be very significant,
both in timing and fact.
To my knowledge, this is the first time they have backed
away from anything so quickly and publicly, he said. Obviously they
gave in to the sensus fidelium -- the sense of the faithful.
The whole thing was so patently unjust and offensive they must have
realized they made a mistake.
The Oblates issued a news release saying members of the religious
order had decided in November, at their general council meeting, to send an
ad hoc reconciliation team to Sri Lanka to meet personally with
Balasuriya.
National Catholic Reporter, January 30,
1998
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