“As a member of the clergy, Father Jeyanesan had very strict tracts on which he could ride his ministry. Not only was he spiritually expected to be on a much higher level of integrity but also he was bound to be a good steward and shepherd.”by Victor Karunairajan
(January 04, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) In no uncertain terms from time to time over the last eighteen months Father Sellathurai Jeyanesan who broke lose from the Jaffna Diocese of the Church of South India (JDCSI) has been told that he must submit the accounts of all the funds he had raised in the name of this church along with instruments and documents related to them to the relevant officials.
He has not to date reckoned it yet as right and proper to fulfill this obligation. This covers a period of over ten years. How this was possible to ignore, or rather why it is impossible for him to meet this moral and ethical obligation let alone the fraudulent aspect of it, is indeed quite bizarre. Is he just another Dr Emile Savundra, the motor insurance fraud of the 1970s? But then unlike him, Father Jeyanesan is a member of the cassocked clergy.
It is not just an obligation; it is a must, the failure of which amounts to fraud, a felony and these funds are believed to be in the tune of millions raised in the US, Europe and even in Israel. Father Jeyanesan broke away from the JDCSI when he lost his contention to become its head. This is an act of desertion never known before in this church and this conflicts with the tenets and doctrines to which a member of the clergy is beholden and also the expectations of the laity of its spiritual leaders, the priests.
Father Jeyanesan who courts a bogus doctorate, not only broke away from the church he also misrepresented certain developments in the JDCSI to its fraternal organizations in the US that have enjoyed nearly two centuries of good relations. The harm he has caused to these relationships has been enormous partly due to the vulnerability of the Americans to be misled by the smart and the crooked. A wit once described this as Marcositis after Ferdinand Marcos who charmed the Americans and led them by their noses in the plunder and pillage of his own Filipino people.
Worse still, it appears Father Jeyanesan made the Wider Church Ministries of the United Church of Christ, the eventual successors to the American Board of Commissioners for World Missions to believe that they hold rights over the properties owned by the American Ceylon Mission in Sri Lanka which was vested in the JDCSI, a hundred years ago. This created quite a turmoil and led to a great deal of misgivings and misunderstandings.
As a member of the clergy, Father Jeyanesan had very strict tracts on which he could ride his ministry. Not only was he spiritually expected to be on a much higher level of integrity but also he was bound to be a good steward and shepherd. In all these he has let his community down and proved beyond any doubt that he himself was a candidate most unfit for the position of a bishop of a diocese.
While this is a matter for the church, but as one who raised public funds for wok in the community he is accountable to the community let alone the JDCSI. The church may overlook but Caesar cannot and it is time Father Jeyanesan came clean with his accounts. Any community that overlooks such felonious conducts encourages the cancer of corruption to destroy every element of its civilized being. Father Jeyanesan’s corrupt conduct by his claim that he heads a church now and that he has his own followers in no way allows him to evade this obligation.
How can this man head a church and claim to have followers with millions he has raised in the name of another church now unaccounted for ten years? And who are his followers? - Sri Lanka Guardian
Post a Comment