Message of peace and hope at Marian shrine in the jungle

THE Pope used his visit to Sri Lanka’s best-known Marian shrine last week to preach a powerful message of reconcili-ation to a country still recovering from a 25-year civil war, writes Anto Akkara in Madhu.

It was at the Madhu shrine in the north of the country that many Tamils took refuge from government forces and Tamil Tiger terrorists during the war that ended in 2008. “Only when we come to understand, in the light of the Cross, the evil we are capable of and have even been a part of, can we experience true remorse and true repentance,” the Pope told a gathering of 300,000 Sri Lankans that included many of the majority Buddhist population as well as Hindus and Catholics. “Only then can we approach one another in true contrition.”

“There are families here today which suffered greatly in the long conflict which tore open the heart of Sri Lanka,” said Francis in his address. The necessity of determining the truth of what happened, followed by reconciliation, was the main theme of the Pope’s visit to the country.

“Through the intercession of Our Lady of Madhu, may all ­people find here inspiration and strength to build a future of ­reconciliation, justice and peace,” he said, after entering a special enclosure to greet more than 1,000 war victims – most of them amputees.
“I am thrilled the Pope came to meet us in this shrine in the jungle,” a Hindu man, S. Mohanathan, 63, said. He was blinded in one eye in July 2008 in the shelling of the Tamil rebel-held area of Mullaitivu, and three of his five children died in the same shelling.