Sri Lanka President congratulates Colombo Archbishop for his elevation to Cardinal

Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa today congratulated the Archbishop of Colombo Most Rev. Dr. Malcolm Ranjith, on his elevation as a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church by the Pope Benedict XVI today.

The consistory ceremony to formally install Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith in the new position will be held on November 20, according to the Vatican.
Pope Benedict XVI appointed Dr. Malcolm Ranjith as Metropolitan Archbishop of Colombo on 16 June 2009.

The 63-year-old Archbishop was born in Polgahawela, Sri Lanka. He is the second cardinal of the Colombo, Sri Lanka archdiocese. The first was Thomas Cooray who was elevated to cardinal in 1965.

The Pope Benedict elected 24 new cardinals on Wednesday and 20 of them are under age 80 making them eligible to be his successor.

Archbishop of Colombo is the spiritual leader of 1.3 million Catholics in Sri Lanka.