Born to a remarkably devout Catholic family in Delatura, little Warnakula Patabandige Ivan Maximus Perera grew up gracefully with warm affection and cordial fondness of many brothers and sisters in the family, during which time he discerned his vocation to the priesthood and entered the priestly formation in the seminary.
Born to a remarkably devout Catholic family in Delatura, little Warnakula Patabandige Ivan Maximus Perera grew up gracefully with warm affection and cordial fondness of many brothers and sisters in the family, during which time he discerned his vocation to the priesthood and entered the priestly formation in the seminary.
Having been ordained to the priesthood by the Servant of God, Most Rev. Dr. Thomas Cardinal Cooray, he was sent as the Assistant Parish Priest of Pamunugama. He has also worked as the Chaplain for YCS until he went for his higher studies in 1971. Having returned to the motherland, he worked dedicatedly for the youth of Negombo. He also worked in parishes and showed his dedication until he was appointed as the Episcopal Vicar of the Negombo Region.
The golden era of his priestly office comes with his appointment as the Archdiocesan Director of Education and the General Manager of Catholic Private Schools (W. P.) through which he stepped into the challenging task of dedicating his life for the upliftment of education in the Archdiocese.
In the capacity of Archdiocesan and National Director of Education, he made arrangements to bring down Catholic teachers to teach religion in state schools by arranging transfers to schools where Catholic students were found in number, appointed Volunteer Teachers to teach religion in schools where there were no teachers of Catholicism, arranged financial assistance to the Volunteer Teachers of Religious Knowledge with the generosity of His Grace Archbishop Nicholas Marcus and established the Rifcast Fund to raise funds for the purpose and negotiated with the government to absorb qualified eligible Volunteer Teachers to the regular teaching cadre, which the Government did to some extent by holding an open competitive examination and adopting various other programmes.
The system of Branch Schools for the Catholic Private Schools which was a brainchild of the Most Rev. Dr. Oswald Gomis, was very much backed to practically execute it. He also successfully negotiated with the government under the leadership of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in Sri Lanka to establish a Teacher Training Course in Christianity/Catholicism at the College of Education at Bingiriya and to get the qualifications and the age to enter the College of Education changed so that Catholic Priests and Religious also could enter the same.
He worked tirelessly to get graduates (Priests, Nuns and laymen and women) appointed as teachers of Religious Knowledge. He also received recognition for the B. Th. and B. Ph. of the Urbaniana University of Rome as degrees to be recognized as qualifying degrees for graduate teaching posts to teach Catholicism. Later the same facility was obtained for Colombo “Deva Dharma Niketanaya”.
These are only a few things among so many that he has done for the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka in the field of Catholic education during the long 30 years of his dedication in education. He will be fondly remembered by many generations for the great things he has done for the children of this country.