The clergy should abstain from all forms of party politics and concentrate on uplifting spiritual wellbeing of the people, said Archbishop of Colombo Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith delivering a convocation address on ‘Spiritual Intelligence and Human Resource Management’ at the University of Ruhuna.
He said, “For our country and our society to move forward, we must not let ourselves to be divided by race, religion, language or class. The law should be within a framework common to all citizens.”
“Individuals who are either highly educated, intellectuals or trained specialists and are spiritually rich should be selected as political leaders,” the Archbishop said.
“Some members of our clergy have become pawns at the hands of politicians. There is a lapse in providing spiritual leadership to the rulers and the people. The people elect to power those who have no qualification to rule them. Those politicians do not care about our country, our people, the future generations, our resources and our environment,” he said.
The Archbishop said that there are conflicts in 11 countries and 47 countries were involved in war due to the lack of spiritual foundation. There is a massive trade in arms and armaments and people are killed and property destroyed.
“According to anti-war organisations, it would take only eight minutes for a ruler who lacked spiritual intelligence to reduce the Earth to ashes,” he said.
The Archbishop said according to the 2018 Annual Report of the Central Environmental Authority and the 2018 Annual Report of the World Economic Forum, global temperature would rise by 4 degrees Celsius within the next two decades due to the careless acts of humans.
“Sea levels are bound to rise and submerge much land due to the melting of ice in the North and the South Poles.
There will be drought due to the drying up of water springs and the death of hundreds of thousands of living beings,” he said.
Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith said that the British philosopher Bertrand Russell who lived in the last century said that modern man will have to live within a triangular crisis namely Crisis with Self, Crisis with Society and Crisis with the Environment.
“Nations such as Finland, Denmark and Norway that topped the 2018 World Happiness Index were countries where the balance between modern technology and Spiritual Intelligence and Human Resource Management was at its best,” he added.