This biography of the late Rev. Fr. Michael Rodrigo, OMI (1930-1987) of Sri Lanka, chronicles a life fearlessly devoted to the service of the poor, efforts to witness Christ to the poor through an innovative interfaith dialogue, and a collaboration for their social and economic empowerment. As a Catholic priest whose life parallels that of the recently martyred Oscar Romero of El Salvador, also assassinated for exposing the exploitation and marginalization of the poor, Fr. Michael was engaged in a selfless journey for justice. The volume analyzes the driving force of his quest to forge a healing bridge between the Christian and Buddhist populations of Sri Lanka through his spiritual grounding in Catholic social teaching and his unique formulation of an interreligious dialogue. It documents the indelible imprint of interfaith understanding he forged up to his untimely death. Interwoven with ethnographic methodology, the book offers a window for understanding the class and religious ruptures stemming from Sri Lanka's colonial history, contextualized in the social realities of poverty in rural Sri Lanka, the political and economic forces implicated in deepening poverty, the resistance struggle by oppressed youth, and Fr. Mike's legacy of justice through peace.
Nandini Gunewardena is a socio-cultural anthropologist who has undertaken over two decades of work on poverty alleviation and social justice interventions with several leading international development agencies. She also has a dozen years of teaching in US universities and has published widely on these issues.
