Formation of Catholic Youth in Sri Lanka for Social Justice: Liberation Theology as a Resource

The arrival of colonial powers and Christian missionaries in Sri Lanka had a profound impact on the pluralist social fabric of the island nation. Missionary education became intertwined with colonial missiology, producing an English-speaking Christian elite class designed to serve the colonial administration. Catholic youth emerged as an exclusive community, economically and politically privileged and largely indifferent to the injustices experienced by Sinhala Buddhist and Tamil Hindu youth. Three major youth uprisings, two Sinhala insurrections (1971; 1989) and a Tamil youth armed struggle arose in response to entrenched socio-economic and political discrimination. The official Roman Catholic Church in Sri Lanka, aligned with the state, failed in its prophetic mission to stand with marginalized youth, instead reinforcing Sinhala Buddhist hegemony and deepening divisions between Sinhala and Tamil Catholics.
This qualitative, phenomenological study investigates how Liberation Theology can serve as a resource to educate Catholic youth in the ways of social justice. Employing semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, and document analysis with ten participants, the study generated three thematic findings: (a) the impact of Vatican II teachings and Liberation Theology on social justice activism; (b) the impact of the Catholic school system on social justice education; and (c) the impact of the Roman Catholic Church on Catholic youth formation. Findings reveal that while progressive priests and lay movements inspired by Liberation Theology made significant contributions to social justice awareness among rural communities, the official Church actively discouraged these movements to preserve the status quo. The Catholic school system, governed by a national curriculum devoid of social justice content and marked by oppressive pedagogy, fails to sensitize youth to structural inequalities. The study concludes that Liberation Theology particularly Asian Liberation Theology as articulated by Aloysius Pieris and Raimond Panikkar, together with Paulo Freire's pedagogy of liberation constitutes a rich resource for transforming Catholic youth formation toward social justice in Sri Lanka.

Liberation Theology, Catholic Youth, Sri Lanka, Social Justice Education, Aloysius Pieris, Paulo Freire, Post-Vatican II, Missionary Education, Colonialism

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