(UTV|COLOMBO) – Pope Francis has appointed a Sri Lankan as the Secretary of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID), the Vatican News reported.
Msgr. Indunil Janakaratne Kodithuwakku Kankanamalage, currently the Under-Secretary of the Council, is a member of the Clergy of the Diocese of Badulla, Sri Lanka.
Msgr. Indunil was born in 1966 of a Buddhist mother who converted on marrying a Catholic. Two-years after his priestly ordination in the Diocese of Badulla on 16 December 2000, he was sent to Rome where he obtained a doctorate in missiology from the Pontifical Urban University. The University later hired him as a Professor at its Faculty of Missiology.
On 12 June 2012, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.
Msgr. Indunil succeeds previous Secretary, Spanish Bishop Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, whom Pope Francis appointed as President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue on 25 May, following the death of Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran on 05 July, 2018.
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