Harin comes a cropper in Cardinal slander blast
It may be due, perhaps, to SJB member Harin Fernando’s singularly wise decision to give up seeking the people’s mandate to take his seat in Parliament but to slip in to the House through the rear door without sweat, that has made him fling his Catholic caution and catechism to the winds and cast baseless accusations against the Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith that has made him come a cropper for the second time within three months.
And this new habit of his has made his vexed party leader Sajith Premadasa, poor fellow, go down on his knees to clean the mess left behind and grovel before the altar atoning for Harin’s sins.
He first flung his stone at the Cardinal, as Harin must recall now as he peers through the glass paned windows of his Hotel Shangri-La luxury apartment staring at the rising Port City, in June when he accused him of playing politics. Addressing an election meeting, he said, "We all know that 80% of Catholic votes traditionally support the UNP. They carried out a well-thought-out plan to drive them away. Cardinal Ranjith said certain ministers, whose fathers knew of the Easter Sunday attacks, managed to protect themselves. That statement alone was a part of that politically orchestrated plan." Sajith had to follow, soon after, with poop tray in hand to clean the stink, which may have cost other SJB candidates who contesting the elections and not coming through the National List, an inestimable amount of Catholic votes as a result of that remark. Harin confessed his sin of ignorance and, perhaps, after a few Hail Mary’s, a truce was struck.
Now the fireworks have started again. It ignited at the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Easter Sunday bombings last
April when Harin was questioned of the prior knowledge he had received from his hospitalised father who had warned him not to attend Easter mass, especially at St. Anthony’s Church, Kochchikade.
Whilst being questioned by the State Counsel, Harin requested to make a statement and proceeded to do so. He said, ‘The Catholic Church could not have been unaware of the impending attack.’
When cross-examined by President’s Counsel Shammil Perera, who looks after the Cardinal’s interests in the proceedings, whether he had evidence to back his claim, Harin said he hadn’t. He then insinuated that Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, too, had had prior information of a possible attack and, as a result, had not celebrated Easter Mass in public on that fateful day.
This was indeed a damaging slander to level at His Eminence the Cardinal. He was thus accused through innuendo of exposing his flock to death and injury by not warning them of the impending attack on churches whilst he himself had saved his own skin by keeping away from church that morning.
Mr. Shammil Perera P.C. calmly asked Harin Fernando whether he was aware that by tradition the Archbishop Cardinal Ranjith presides over the solemn celebration of the Easter Vigil Service at midnight of Saturday which continues throughout the night and ends in the early hours of Sunday morning? Whether he was aware that subsequently, the Archbishop celebrates another Holy Mass at Archbishop’s House in the morning of Easter Sunday? And that Archbishop Cardinal Ranjith had done all that last year as well?
To all these three piercing, pertinent questions, Harin Fernando had to sheepishly answer ‘no’. He had not been aware that the Cardinal had attended these public functions and had not been hiding under his bed to save his cassocked hide as Harin claimed through innuendo? One year and five months after the Easter Sunday carnage and Harin Fernando had not bothered to check on the Cardinal’s public whereabouts on that Easter eve and Sunday morn before making his unfounded claim?
Leaving the Commission, Harin remained unrepentant. He told reporters that he found it ‘hard to believe that not a single DIG had not informed the Catholic Church of the impending attack’. One day soon the truth will be out, he warned.
Better he awaits the advent of that day before opening his gab and casting calumnies against men of the cloth and others without a shred of evidence to support his claims. The freedom of speech is not the freedom of the wild ass and does not cover what is incredulous to this burnt out politico whose slide from public popularity has, sadly, been meteoric in its descent.