Appropriate to make Inter-religious relations a state policy to build a true human being! – Minister In-charge

“By making inter-religious relations a state policy, the competition within the religions and between religions should be stopped and a man who lives in love with a kind heart should be given to the society.” said the Buddhist Affairs, Minister of Religion and Culture, Vidura Wickramanayake.  

“We need to arrange a program to create a human being who is not separated by religion. All religious scholars and religious leaders declare this humanity. Today, creating humanity is a big challenge for the government. Each religion has different threats. We have a challenge on how to give birth to society a practical child, a human being with the original teaching of each religion” said Minister  Wickramanayake.

“For that, we need help from the mosque, temple, Kovil, and the Church. It is very necessary to take steps to socialize as a good citizen without stopping through the awareness provided by the exhibitions,” said Minister Wickramanayake.

The minister stated this while speaking to the media at an interfaith educational exhibition and cultural program in an effort to foster understanding, love, and unity among multi-faith Sunday school children.

This interfaith exhibition and cultural program was held last Sunday – the 30th of July at Maris Stella College, Negombo, with the theme of “Love Beyond Religion and Race”.

“In order to make children understand the principles and values of different religions and build love and unity among them, as a pilot program we selected Negombo region, where there is a large multi-religious population within the Colombo Archdiocese,” told Asia News Diluni Tharangani, the coordinator of the program of Caritas Seth Sarana.

She also said that the help given by the Department of State Religious Affairs to the Seth Sarana Caritas Institute of the Archdiocese of Colombo is a great strength to open the right path for the children of the country who are about to take charge of the future to experience the beauty of unity in diversity.

The event was organized by the “Seth Sarana” – Caritas, the social service arm of the Colombo Archdiocese and the Department of Christian Religious Affairs with the support of the Departments of Buddhist Affairs, Hindu Religious and Cultural Affairs, Muslim Religious and Cultural Affairs.

Through the special booths created as Christian house, Islamic house, Hindu house, and Buddhist house, Scholars made awareness to children about the cores and spread of the respective religions.

Through a common meeting, Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, and Christian religious leaders explained to children that spiritual as well as worldly life could be won in mutual respect, listening, and unity among different religions.

Several Sunday school children who visited the exhibition said that it is very important to be able to see all the religious main documents, testimonies such as the Holy Bible, Holy Al Kuran, Bhagavat Gita Book, and the Tripitaka Book, and other all religious symbols, idols, objects, prayers books, history books and articles, clothes etc.

This is a great opportunity for us to get a good knowledge of all main four religions in one place.  I like it if the children in other areas in Sri Lanka also will get this chance. That much this day is very valuable.,” told one Muslim girl representing a Sunday school of Islam.

We came here representing the Wijayarathnam Hindu School in Negombo. Truly, today is a happy day for us because we came to know many things of other religions that we did not know. Also, we are happy we could get an opportunity to get to know some others too. ” told Asia News about a group of boys.

“Today is a very historic day because this day has been prepared to show that it is possible to approach the matter of love in the matter of religion. There are different religions in Sri Lanka, but without being divided within those religions, together we can share all matters of love, affection, and compassion with the world. We can see and feel it in the effort to display it in this same room” told media Ven. Wijeriye Wimala Thero.

“Even though I have attended programs as an inter-religious leader for such a long time, I am happy to say that this is the first program I could see, organized in a very meaningful way and at a very high level in order to gain an understanding about all religions.” said a Muslim Priest Hasan Moulana to the media.

Also, he said that It is a very necessary task to hold similar programs in all the 24 districts of Sri Lanka. “I would like to request it to the Seth Sarana Institute and Minister Wickramanayake the religious affairs.”

Minister in charge of Religious and Cultural Affairs Vidura Wickramanayake and Honorary Registrar of Negombo Katana Sasanakshaka Board Ven. Seeduwe Sumanawansa Thero, Ven. Wijeriya Wimala Thero, Kugadasa Iyer Thirupakaran Kurukkal, Ramachandra kurukkal Babu Sarma, Hasan Mawlana Sayed, Brother Sunanda Alwis, Rector of the Maris Stella College, Father Suranga Nonis, Director of the Colombo Catechetical Mission, and all the officers of the Department of Christian Religious Affairs attended for the interfaith exhibition and cultural program which ended with a beautiful cultural program that given the chance for various talents of Sunday school children.

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