Fr Aloysius Pieris .… now residing at the TULANA RSEARCH CENTRE in Kelaniya, Sri Lanka
Cyril Ponnamperuma was an ex-Jesuit. As a former Jesuit scholastic, he studied at Sacred Heart College in Shambaganur (in the State of Madras or Tamilnadu). The Sacred Heart College was an international Jesuit Philosophate where he secured his Licentiate in Philosophy (L. Ph), as did many of us Lankan Jesuits.
Licentiate in Philosophy is a universally recognized ecclesiastical degree (not a BSc) and had nothing to do with the Madras University. That degree corresponds to an M. Ph in a secular university today.
Ponnamperuma on right with George Keyt
Then he came for his regency to Galle and taught General Science at SAC …… just a couple of classes (which I attended as an Aloysian residing in the Kalegana Minor Seminary).
This was the time he continued [with his Jesuit superiors] to question his Jesuit vocation, and finally left the Society of Jesus ….. but temporarily worked in the Galle diocese (still in cassock) as an assistant to Fr Vincent Cali, s.j. the rector of the minor seminary in Kalegana (Galle) where we seminarians came to know him personally and to admire his extraordinary humaneness hiding his brilliant intellect.
Then he left the robes for good……………..and began an academic journey that ended up in his becoming a world-famous scientist.
After that I met him only once, after a university function here in our country at which he was a special guest and at which I was officially awarded my doctorate. That explains how I had a chance of exchanging a few words with him……for the last time.
Aloy Pieris, s.j.
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ALSO NOTE
- https://sacgallehistory.blogspot.com/2022/12/highlights-of-jesuit-era-at-st-aloysius.html
- https://sacgallehistory.blogspot.com/2022/12/highlights-of-hundred-years
- https://groundviews.org/2009/12/20/dr-cyril-ponnamperuma-1923-1994-a-passionate-champion-of-public-science/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_Ponnamperuma
