Bishop Raymond Kingsley Wickramasinghe

Bishop Raymond Kingsley Wickramasinghe, Bishop of Galle, was born on August 31, 1962, at Uthuwankanda, near Mawanella, in what is now the Diocese of Ratnapura. He was educated at Pilapitiya Primary School in Kelaniya and Mayurapadha Primary School in Mawanella, and took his advanced level at Piyatissa Maha Vidyalaya in Kalegana, Galle. He entered St. Francis Xavier's minor seminary at Kalegana in 1977, spent the years 1982 and 1983 at the Daham Sevana pre-philosophate at Kalutara, and studied philosophy and theology at the National Seminary of Our Lady of Lanka at Ampitiya, Kandy, from 1983 to 1989. He was ordained a priest on August 5, 1989, and was incardinated in the Diocese of Galle; when the Diocese of Ratnapura was erected he chose to continue serving his mother diocese. He holds a bachelor's degree in theology, a licentiate and a doctorate in moral theology taken magna cum laude at the Alphonsian Academy in Rome. He served as assistant parish priest at Ratnapura from 1989 to 1990, as rector of the minor seminary of Galle from 1990 to 1991, and as assistant parish priest at Balangoda from 1991 to 1992. He was then secretary to the Bishop of Galle and assistant parish priest of St. Mary's Cathedral in Galle in 1992, parish priest of St. Anthony's Church at Rakwana and administrator of Vianney House at Bulutota from 1992 to 1994, and again secretary to the bishop from 1994 to 1996. He studied in Rome for the licentiate in moral theology from 1996 to 1998 and for the doctorate from 1999 to 2001, serving once more as secretary to the bishop in the intervening year. He was parish priest of Kalegana from 2001 to 2003 and diocesan director of Caritas from 2001 to 2002, rector of St. Francis Xavier's Minor Seminary in Galle from 2003 to 2008, and from 2008 professor of moral theology at the National Seminary of Our Lady of Lanka. On May 27, 2011, he was appointed Bishop of Galle. He received episcopal ordination on August 31, 2011, at Kaluwella, with Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don as principal consecrator and Joseph Kingsley Swampillai and Harold Anthony Perera as co-consecrators. His episcopal motto is Solus Christus, Totally for Christ.