Letter from the Pope
In an age where emails and SMSs are the preferred mode of communication and it is mostly the monthly bills that arrive by post, it was a pleasant surprise for Francis Bennett Peiris of Chilaw to learn that there was a letter for him from Pope Francis.
Mr. Peiris had in January 2014 written a letter to the Vatican addressed to Pope Francis, after reading an article in the Catholic weekly, The Messenger. The article, published on September 15 last year was about the Pope’s decision to baptise the child of an unmarried woman. Anna Romero, the 35-year- old mother had become pregnant but had refused to abort the child deciding to raise it alone. The Pope, taken up by her courage had promised her that he would baptise the child. Greatly appreciative of the Pope’s action, Mr. Peiris decided to write a letter to him, applauding his decision.
An autographed portrait of the Pope
Two months later he received a call from the Holy See (Vatican) Embassy in Colombo requesting him to come to the embassy. Meeting the Acting Apostolic Nuncio Monsignor, Renato Kucic, Mr. Peiris learnt that he had received a letter in reply to his own. The letter from the Pope not only thanked him but also said that the Vatican prayers would be with him and granting blessings to both him and his family. The letter was signed personally by the Pope and enclosed was an autographed photo of the Pope as well as a gold medal commemorating the first anniversary of Pope Francis becoming the head of the Catholic Church.
“I have heard that since the Pope receives thousands of letters every day, they are filtered by his
Francis Peiris
many secretaries according to the language and only a chosen few are given for him to see. “I am very happy and glad that mine was in the chosen lot. When I learnt that I had a letter from the Vatican, I was so surprised and extremely happy,” Mr. Peiris adds with a smile.
Mr Peiris who happens to share a name with the Pope is a parishioner of the Sindathri Matha Church (Mother of the Fisherman’s Saviour) in Waikkal, Chilaw. He has been the secretary to the church council for two terms. For the past two years he has been printing a weekly news letter of the gospel reading of the week in Sinhala, along with the weekly church service programme to be distributed among the parishioners. This is done at his own expense, inspired by a publication he saw at a church in London.
Having served most of his life in the Ministry of Health, he is now a protocol officer for the Ministry while also being the coordinator of 
the project monitoring unit of the WHO. Mr. Peiris’s wife is a retired Nursing sister, and his two children were brought up in a religious background, attending Catholic schools. The grandfather of three, smiles as he says, “My daughter’s son, the only one among my grandchildren old enough to understand this, didn’t believe that I had got a letter from the Pope but now he tells all his friends that his grandfather got a letter from the Pope.”
Mr. Peiris is now looking forward to the Pope’s proposed visit to Sri Lanka next year. “He has already met all Sri Lankans in Italy. Pope Francis has undertaken a lot of work and changed a lot of things in his short tenure. When we were schooling a Pope was known as the ‘prisoner of the Vatican’ but this Pope has been going out to other countries and communities, changing accepted procedures and in the process getting closer to the people. I have been interested in watching his work and even happier that I received a letter signed by him. It’s my most prized treasure now,” Mr. Peiris adds.
