The Defiant Padre

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Although published in 1990, Mary and Human Liberation had not created  too  many ripples until the Vatican decided it was heresy and excommunicated its 72-year-old Sri Lankan author, Father Tissa Balasuriya, earlier this year. Says the defiant padre: "I am fighting against the excommunication. I am not asking for a pardon, I am asking for justice. I want those who did this to be tried."

It was the Vatican Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the Roman Catholic Church´s doctrinal watchdog, that issued the notification excommunicating Fr Balasuriya, a priest for 51 years and widely respected in Sri Lanka for his grassroots links. On 5 January, the Congregation issued a statement saying Fr Balasuriya had incurred the severest form of excommunication, or Latae sententiae, because he distorted Catholic dogma. The last person excommunicated in Sri Lanka was the reverend Leonard Feeney—an American—in the 1950s for an alleged statement he made against salvation outside the church.

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