-By: Special Correspondent - Vatican Bureau
(Lanka-e-News -21.April.2025, 10.00 PM) The Catholic world is in mourning. White robes have been swapped for black, incense has turned from fragrant to funereal, and the mighty bells of St. Peter’s Basilica toll in a solemn rhythm. Pope Francis, the 266th pontiff and the spiritual shepherd of 1.3 billion Roman Catholics, has departed this world — aged, revered, and stubbornly progressive.
But as the gates of Heaven are readied for Francis, the gates of the Sistine Chapel creak open again for that most theatrical and sacred of Vatican rituals: the papal conclave.
And while Italians sharpen their Latin chants and Brazilians whisper prayers over Caipirinhas, a curious new name is making its rounds under the Michelangelo ceiling — one that makes cardinals blink twice and Sri Lankans puff their chests.
Yes, you heard right.
And not just in a “God bless him, he tried” kind of way. The 76-year-old Sri Lankan cardinal, known for his mix of fierce liturgical orthodoxy and political firepower, has suddenly emerged as a serious contender for the Throne of St. Peter. Some say the Holy Spirit moves in mysterious ways. Others say: this could be Sri Lanka’s most effective export since Ceylon tea.
Let’s be honest — when one thinks of the Vatican, “Sri Lanka” isn’t exactly the first geopolitical dot that lights up. More often, the island enters conversation with elephants, civil wars, or cricket collapses.
But under the Catholic canopy, Sri Lanka has long held a unique space — a tiny, vibrant, passionately devout Catholic population nestled within a predominantly Buddhist state, led for decades by a cardinal whose politics, piety, and periodic prophecies have made him both respected and feared.
Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the Archbishop of Colombo, is not your average cassock-clad bureaucrat. He’s spoken like a lion in a Parliament of lambs. He wears his cassock like a general’s uniform. He is, depending on whom you ask, either a “living saint” or “Sri Lanka’s most dangerous political theologian.”
So how, in the wake of Pope Francis’s death, did this Cardinal from a faraway tear-shaped island begin drawing support from the College of Cardinals, particularly across Asia, Africa, and even parts of Latin America?
The answer, dear reader, lies not just in Colombo. It lies in blood, bombs, and betrayal.
On April 21, 2019, Easter Sunday, Sri Lanka witnessed one of the worst terrorist attacks in modern Catholic history. Coordinated bombings on churches and hotels claimed over 260 lives. It was a massacre that horrified the world and scarred a nation.
But while the smoke cleared and the global headlines moved on, Cardinal Ranjith did not.
He called it not just a tragedy, but a betrayal — a betrayal by the state, by intelligence agencies, by politicians who “knew too much, too soon, and did too little.” He refused to allow the blood of innocents to become sacrificial offerings on the altar of political expediency.
To this day, he continues to publicly demand justice. No diplomatic tightrope walking. No clerical mumbo jumbo. Just the fury of a shepherd whose flock was slaughtered while the wolves sat idle and smirked.
To his critics, this turned him into a political agitator in vestments.
To his fans — and many cardinals from the global South — it turned him into a modern-day prophet.
And prophets, as history has shown, make very interesting Popes.
So what are the odds? Can a Sri Lankan cardinal truly navigate the gilded Byzantine maze of the Vatican to emerge as Pope?
In Rome, rumors swirl like incense smoke. Some say the Curia — the administrative brain of the Church — respects his theological rigor. Others hint that the conservative bloc, eager to counteract Francis’s liberal legacy, sees Ranjith as a reset button wearing a pectoral cross.
Even more crucially, there’s a quiet but growing alliance among cardinals from Asia, Africa, and Latin America who feel that the Church’s next leader must come from the “periphery,” not the palazzos. Francis himself, an Argentine outsider, opened that door. Ranjith might just kick it wide open.
As one African cardinal reportedly quipped during a private session, “If we can evangelize, pray, suffer, and build churches in the heat and dust, maybe it’s time we also get to run the place.”
Touché, Your Eminence.
If elected, Cardinal Ranjith would be the first non-European Pope since… well, since the current Pope. But more dramatically, he’d be the first South Asian Pope in history.
That possibility has turned Sri Lanka into a bizarre fusion of Vatican-watch and reality-TV-fandom.
In Negombo, families light candles not for the dead, but for the electors.
In Kandy, elderly priests are preparing sermons titled “What if our Malcolm becomes Pope?”
In Colombo’s Catholic schools, children have already started writing letters to “Pope Uncle.”
And perhaps most humorously, government officials are scrambling to find out what protocol they must follow if one of their citizens becomes the Vicar of Christ.
One local priest joked, “The President will probably ask him for a Swiss bank account blessing and three diplomatic passports.”
The beauty — and irony — of this moment is how it compresses centuries of colonial, cultural, and ecclesiastical dynamics into one papal spotlight.
Sri Lanka, once colonized by Catholic empires — Portuguese, Dutch, and British — now finds itself potentially leading the very empire that once converted it.
If Malcolm Ranjith ascends, it’s not just a religious coup. It’s poetic reversal. The brown man in Rome. The ex-colonial at the helm of the Holy See.
And while Sri Lanka is no stranger to miracle claims (statues that cry, monks that levitate, MPs that speak sense once a decade), this one feels different.
This one is not divine intervention. It’s divine justice — especially for those still waiting for the truth behind Easter Sunday.
Yet, nothing is simple in the Catholic Church. Behind the red robes and Renaissance art lies a battlefield of ideologies, secrets, and power plays that make Sri Lankan politics look like kindergarten.
Cardinal Ranjith may be loved in Asia and Africa, but he’s also seen as “divisive” by the European liberal faction. His past criticisms of interfaith dialogue, his hardline liturgical stances, and his refusal to play nice with secular governments have raised Vatican eyebrows more than once.
One Jesuit scholar muttered, “He might be the Pope who brings back Latin, incense, and excommunications — in that order.”
Then there’s the question of his alleged “prophecies.” While supporters praise his spiritual insights, skeptics accuse him of blurring mysticism with conspiracy. His relentless quest to expose the masterminds behind Easter Sunday has led him into dangerous territory — confronting intelligence agencies, military brass, and political dynasties alike.
If he brings that fire to the Vatican, it could either purify the Church… or burn bridges faster than a heretic in the 16th century.
Of course, none of this is certain. Papal elections are notorious for surprises. One minute you’re the favorite; the next, you’re back home organizing parish raffles.
But the very idea that Cardinal Ranjith is in the mix — seriously, meaningfully, prophetically — is a moment of pride for Sri Lanka. And a moment of curiosity for the world.
Could a man from a conflict-scarred, tea-growing, cricket-obsessed island become the next Bishop of Rome?
Could the Vatican’s next spiritual CEO come not from the catacombs of Europe, but from the embattled archdiocese of Colombo?
Could a cardinal who fights for Easter justice become the Pope who finally crucifies corruption and resurrects accountability?
In a Church where martyrs become saints, and saints become legends, stranger things have happened.
As the College of Cardinals prepare to enter conclave, cloaked in secrecy and stirred by the Holy Spirit, one wonders if the next puff of white smoke might carry with it the faint scent of cinnamon and protest.
And if, on that historic day, a voice emerges from the balcony of St. Peter’s to declare, “Habemus Papam… Malcolmus!” — then, truly, the Catholic world will know that even the smallest island can send ripples across eternity.
Or as one young Sri Lankan Catholic put it on Twitter:
“We sent St. Joseph Vaz. Now we’re sending the boss.”
-By: Special Correspondent - Vatican Bureau
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by (2025-04-21 16:28:03)
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