I am happy to be invited here to bless this new building of Aquinas College for Higher Studies as the institute celebrates the Golden Jubilee of its founding. Even though I have never been a student of this College I have had the privilege of walking side by side with the College from its very inception.

The story of Aquinas began with, and at, St. Joseph’s College, Colombo 10. We were then students of the higher classes there, and witnessed groups of students coming in the afternoons as we closed school (and that time it was at 3.30), to follow evening classes in what was called the CAM building. These classes were open for both male and female students and they were to qualify for university entrance. This was already before 1949.

Having joined the Seminary I was here in these very premises to witness the first building being put up from around 1953 to house Aquinas. Almost every week we as students of St. Bernard’s Seminary witnessed the Very Rev. Fr. Peter A. Pillai, then Rector of St. Joseph’s,  come here to supervise the building work. The classes were then shifted here from St. Joseph’s and Aquinas was formally established as Aquinas University College.

The vision of Fr. Peter A. Pillai was to establish a University College here so that those who wished to pursue higher studies could do so. He was hoping that students who wished to sit the London examinations could avail themselves of that opportunity. Eventually he was hoping that this would build up as a University on its own merit. It is with this vision that several diploma classes, a Science department, Agriculture department and such others were instituted. In short the vision of the founder was to have an institute of higher learning here so that it could provide wider scope for thousands of young men and women, who would otherwise be deprived of higher education, to achieve their goal. His Eminence Thomas Cardinal Cooray, who was then Archbishop of Colombo, shared this vision fully and extended his fullest cooperation to his erstwhile friend in every way possible.

From what I know, and as I look around here, the presence of so many distinguished alumni of the College would confirm that, that dream of the founders has been largely fulfilled. I see here many distinguished persons come to honour their alma mater, and there are many who have passed through the portals of this College in the highest echelons of the country’s administration.

Therefore as I begin I feel it my duty to honour the memory of the two founders – Fr. Peter A. Pillai and His Eminence Thomas Cardinal Cooray. So much is owed by so many to the memory of these two great men whose heart burned with the desire of preparing learned and noble men for the future of Sri Lanka. It was not only the wish they had, but the will to do what they were convinced of that we should admire. They did what they thought was the best thing for the young whom they loved and the country they esteemed. While we admire their vision and foresight we ask the Lord to reward them for their labours.

I also take this opportunity to thank all the other past Rectors of this College who have laboured with great dedication and self-sacrifice to keep it going in spite of the many trials and tribulations that the College had to face in the course of this fifty-year journey. There is Fr. Tissa Balasuriya, Monsignor W. L. A. Don Peter (who had two long terms of rectorship and who has done so much for the College) and the late Fr. Neville Emmanuel. We have now Fr. Crispin Leo who has held the  fort over the final decade of the half century and more. I also thank the dedicated staff – the academic, the clerical and the minor, without whose dedicated labour no achievement would have been possible.

Having completed the course of a half century today we have come to bless this new building. I thank Fr. Crispin Leo for this work. He has worked hard to make this a reality and we appreciate his contribution to the Aquinas Complex. I also express my deep gratitude to the benefactors who helped us and all those who laboured to make this a reality. Now we bless this building. We do so with the hope that this would provide space for the much required improvement of the present facilities and for further expansion. Much as this is so, it is well for us to remember that the brick and mortar structure of an institution of this nature is only one segment of what makes it an institute of higher learning. The more vital factors are there to be added to make it complete.

Even though Aquinas is not a university as it stands today, it is an institute of higher learning and as such it has much to contribute in that field. In this sense while it is an institution that imparts knowledge it should also be an institute that creates knowledge – meaning to say that it should also be an institute that seeks and finds new knowledge of things. This is what a university should be – it should be dedicated to its own research so that the country would benefit by its work and findings. Thus it has to work in the fundamental sectors of education, sciences, communications, information and culture. Much is expected especially in the fields of relevance to the Church. It would be the hope and aspiration of all those who come here that they not only listen to a lecture that is given in a classroom, but that they enter here into a community of learning and benefit by their very presence and life here as students. Otherwise it would indeed be a glorified tutory and not an institute of higher learning.

It is also a blessing that this institute has a representative mixture of almost all the ethnic and socio-political communities in the Island. Hence this provides an opportunity for fruitful dialogue. It would be a providential opportunity to build up good relationships which as we see are very vital for our development as a nation. It is an excellent opportunity to provide for dialogue especially between Christianity and the other cultures in the country. It should be our endeavor to train seriously the Catholic elite who come here, to appreciate our own cultural values rooting them in the faith and making them to be credible witnesses  to it in society. 

On the contrary it would be a tragedy if the thousands that come here be like the commuters in a public transport vehicle where each one is set in his own seat only to be carried to the common destination of a public exam. There is great potential here to provide for the promotion of that unity, cooperation and understanding that it vital to us in Sri Lanka to build up our nation of the future. We could proudly say that we have here the cream of our young men and women in learning. Hence we owe it to them and to our country to give them not only the knowledge of things but also a formation that will make them leaders of the future.

We must impress on them the fundamental realities that unite us and which are the basis of a united and prosperous nation. The student who comes here should also leave impressed that education and culture, communication and science also entail a fundamental ethical dimension. This will offer them enlightenment to realize the validity of the universal moral values, enabling them to take up the serious cultural challenges of our time and give them responses worthy of the human person. It is only in the fulfillment of this task that Aquinas will measure up to the dignity of the Catholic institution we envision it to be. It is my wish and prayer that Aquinas will be equal to this task.