COLOMBO: The Sri Lankan government on Monday decided to erect the world’s tallest Christmas tree here, defying the Catholic Church which had stalled the project earlier on the grounds that it was wasteful and that the money would be better spent on poverty alleviating programs.
The project to erect a 100 meter or 325 ft tall Christmas tree in the Galle Face Marina in Central Colombo at a cost of US$ 200,000 is the brainchild of the cricketing legend and Minister of Ports, Arjuna Ranatunga. As workers were erecting the steel frame for the world’s tallest Christmas tree, the Catholic Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, condemned the expenditure as “wasteful” and appealed to the government to spend the money on poverty alleviation programs instead.
In 2015 the Sri Lankan Catholic Church had told its followers not to put up Christmas trees and fall prey to the commercialization of Christmas celebrations. It urged the faithful to remember Christ on that day and do charitable work.
But the government, keen on pleasing the Christian community which enjoys putting up Christmas trees, also to attract tourists in the on-going tourist season, was keen on erecting the tree. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe himself took up the matter with Cardinal Ranjith which apparently silenced the clergyman.
“Work resumed this morning after the Prime Minister’s intervention with the archbishop,” Arjuna Ranatunga said in a statement to AFP. “It will be ready for Christmas,” he added.
“The Archbishop had been misquoted. What he meant was that if government funds are being used for this project then it can be put to better use. However the Prime Minister cleared the misunderstanding and informed him that this was clearly a project being constructed with private funds,” added Ravi Karunanayake, the Minister of Finance.
There was no immediate comment from the Archbishop
According to Guinness World Records, the tallest Christmas tree was erected in the southern Chinese province of Guangzhou last year, measuring around 55 meters. A team in Mexico claimed to have erected a 90-metre tree in 2009. But this claim is yet to be acknowleged.