Katchatheevu Annual Feast of Saint Anthony Cancelled Again
Annual Fest On Isolated Island Cancelled Again In War-Torn North
JAFFNA, Sri Lanka (UCAN) — The Feast of Saint Anthony is an opportunity to meet and pray together for Tamil fishermen and their families on both sides of the Palk Strait that separates Sri Lanka from India.
The festival is normally celebrated in March on a deserted island off the Jaffna peninsula, but the governments of both Sri Lanka and India, citing increased hostilities, have banned travel to the island this year.
“We tried reasoning with the state, but finally dropped the idea since state forces do not allow anyone, even pilgrims, to enter the island,” Father Justin B. Gnanapragasam, vicar general of Jaffna diocese, told UCA News on March 3.
The feast honoring the guardian of fishermen officially falls on June 13 but is observed in the first week of March due to calmer seas. This is the second consecutive year it has been banned for Sri Lankans and the first for Indians.
The pilgrimage to the Saint Anthony shrine on Katchatheevu Island, about 70 kilometers southwest of Jaffna City, has a checkered history. From 1983 to 2002, the Sri Lankan government prohibited people from visiting the island due to the conflict between the Tamil rebels and the state. A ceasefire in 2002 allowed a temporary revival, but the ban was reinstated four years later.
“They imposed a fishing ban on Jaffna peninsula, and barred any subsequent movement in the sea as of August 2006,” Father Gnanapragasam pointed out to UCA News. He said the government imposed the restriction due to heavy fighting with Tamil rebels. “Fishermen are allowed to fish only during daylight, no more than two kilometers from the beach,” he added.
According to media reports, installation of a regional underwater defense system further influenced the government decision. The Sri Lankan navy set it up between Katchatheevu and other small islands around the peninsula to check arms smuggling and the movement of “Sea Tigers,” a unit of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The Sinhala-led government has been battling for more than 25 years against the LTTE struggle for a separate homeland.
The highlight of the weeklong festival on the island was a “get-together” of Indians and Sri Lankans of various faiths without the need for visas or other documents. Pilgrims coming to see relatives and friends camped on the island and exchanged goods from both countries. The two-day festival ended with Mass.
“In 2006, some 2,000 pilgrims from India attended,” Father S. Roy Ferdinand, in charge of St. Anthony’s shrine on the island, told UCA News by phone. “From the Sri Lankan side, some 50 people came, including priests and officials who coordinated the festival,” said Father Ferdinand, parish priest of St. John’s Church in Delft, a larger island northeast of Katchatheevu in the Palk Strait.
The shrine is a “miraculous” church, says Gregory Philip Ferminus, 68, who coordinates the Centre for Performing Arts, a well-known Church-run art center in Jaffna. He told UCA News today’s younger people are unlucky because they cannot make the journey to the island and pray with Indian Catholics.
Thangaraja Sebastiampillai, a poor 47-year-old Tamil fisherman, told UCA News he was disappointed, because “I had planned to attend the festival and meet my nieces.” His nieces had fled to India due to the war, he explained, and he cannot afford the air ticket to visit them there.
