Jerome: If the truth hurt, I’m sorry

On the run pastor’s amazing answer to Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus

Unlike his Prophet to all Prophets, the al Jazeera disgraced Uebert Angel, materialising at his Miracle Dome on March 19th at the whiff of the word joy, Pastor Jerome was unable to manifest himself in the flesh -- as he had said he would -- at the airport last Sunday.

Instead, he took to the ether to transmit himself via zoom to a more downto-earth Mirihana hall -- a far cry away from his Katunayake miracle dome -- to tell his Sunday-best Sundaydressed flock of devoted sheep what had kept him from keeping the promised rendezvous in the flesh.

‘I am coming back home, that is guaranteed,’ he enthused to pep up his audience watching him on the giant screen. ‘Today my meeting here went a little beyond time. So I couldn’t catch the intended flight. But now my lawyers are working and preparing the way for me to return.’

Quite a slump in standards, isn’t it? Two months ago at Jerome’s Miracle Dome, he had materialised an angel, moments after mentioning that ‘angels invade environments of joy.’ The Angel Uebert instantly manifested, came four thousand miles from Zimbabwe, to have a puff of Jerome’s ‘oxygen of joy’.

But now miracle maker Jerome has to depend on local hacks to smooth the path and clear the legal mines for his return to these island shores. The miracle dome has fallen silent and lies pitifully bare without its ‘prophet’ to stage its ‘miracle’ shows that kept the credulous in thrall.

He had none but himself to blame. His own foul tongue, fed by his arrogance, had brought him to this ignominious pass. Derogatory slights against the four main religions had flared the nation’s ire and prompted the President to order the CID to probe his inflammatory comments and organisation.

Jerome had gone too far with his religious jibes. Ruffled too many religious feathers to expect a cheer squad at the airport to welcome him

home. After fleeing from the island before a travel ban could take effect, he can only expect arrest at the terminal gates.

Last Sunday in his zoomed sermon, he told the 200-odd Mirihana crowd not to fight for him but to stand with him. Referring to his controversial sermon, made on April 30th, he said:

“That day I preached the true gospel. I was preaching what was in the Bible. It is still there in the Bible. I checked it today. It is still there. It is sad to see the clergy taking the opportunity and using my name – clergy who have secretly met me to study the bible – and speaking against me. I can bring up their names but I won’t.’

Then the apology, Jerome style. He said: ‘I want to yet apologize to my Buddhist brothers, Hindu brothers, Muslim brothers and sisters, if my words by any means have hurt you emotionally. I humbly apologise to the Buddhist clergy in Sri Lanka.’

And then came the qualifier. The spoiler.

‘However, he said, ‘I don’t apologise for speaking the truth. My apology is for hurting your feelings.’

Call that an apology? It is nothing of the sort. Rather a self-indulging re-affirmation of his supreme

beliefs. An arrogant exaltation of his version of truth as the sole universal truth, beside which all other versions of truth were cast in inferior light, and subjected to his disdain.

What he was really telling the Buddhists, the Muslims and the Hindus was: ‘I spoke the Truth. The gospel truth. So sorry, if the truth hurt you.’

If he had stabbed the feelings of those embracing different faiths four weeks ago, then, last Sunday, with his belated spurious apology, he turned the knife in.

Pray say, can there be repentance without clear admission of sin? Can man atone his transgressions without first confessing his guilt? Can earthly forgiveness be granted to a ruthless terrorist who guns down little children, and yet maintains it was right to have gunned them down, but says he is sorry if it had made the parents cry?

If there was no wrong done, what was there to regret?

His vain apology, designed to smooth ruffled feathers and thaw the frost for an early comeback, cut no ice with the millions he had outraged. Instead of pacifying anger and healing the sores, Jerome’s cosmetic sorry only made matters worse. It deepened the resentment and increased the ire.

Neither did his superficial apology fool the Minister of Police. ‘His apology will not prevent the police from taking action against him,’ Tiran Alles declared at a press conference on Monday.

With police on alert at BIA for his prophesied next coming, with the CID probing his inflammatory comments, with Buddhist and Religious Affairs Minister Wickremanayake strongly warning, there would be no room for anyone to insult any religion, and the Supreme Court petitioned by clergymen, representing all four religious faiths in the country, pleading for his arrest, the Pastor, on the run for two weeks, must feel the noose tightening around his dog collar.

Only a year ago on May 27, Jerome had opened his Miracle Dome, a stateof-the-art 4134 square meter building built on 3-acre land in Katunayake adjacent to the BIA. On its website, it is hailed as a ‘God-given mandate to Prophet Jerome Fernando.’

Pity the mandate didn’t last long for today, exactly a year since its glorious opening, the Dome lies hushed with its Prophet fled from justice.

Only one miracle has survived the backlash and still lingers to fascinate and hold in awe not only all who still believe in miracles but also those who don’t.

The miracle of the dome that baffles the uninitiated is why the taxman turned a blind eye and left unprobed the mysterious source that financed the building of the expansive dome which is reputed to have cost billions to erect. From where did the funds come? Did it fall like heaven’s manna, God-given to pastor Jerome? Or did it gush from the hard-earned savings of his staunch believers, who gave with ‘apage’, or selfless love, their dough?

As a last resort on Friday, Jerome’s lawyers sought an order from the Supreme Court to prevent his arrest by the police. No doubt, his faithful flock will be praying that their prophet, who once drew miracles from his pocket, will find an earthly miracle atop the Hulftsdorp Hill.