NEW YORK/CONNECTICUT
BishopAccountability.org
Summary of Case: A native of Sri Lanka, Tissera/Warnakulasuriya was ordained in 1989. By 1997 he was working in the Archdiocese of New York, as an assistant in a Staten Island parish. There is a two-year gap in his Directory listings, and he reappears in 2002 in the Diocese of Hartford CT. He assisted there at parishes in West Hartford, Enfield, Watertown and New Britain. Notably there are gaps in his assignments 2003-2004 and again 2006-2007. In 2011 Tissera/Warnakulasuriya was made pastor of St. Bernard’s in Tariffville, CT.
In July 2011 Tissera/Warnakulasuriya was placed on leave by the diocese after a male youth reported that the priest touched his pubic area during confessions in December 2010 and again in May and July 2011. The youth was 17 or 18 years-old during the incidents. Tissera/Warnakulasuriya was arrested in August 2011. In September 2012 he was found guilty of misdemeanor sexual assault and sentenced to three years’ probation.
In a lawsuit settled in October 2016, Tissera/Warnakulasuriya was accused of repeated sexual assault of a 13 to 14 year-old boy in the Fall of 2000 through Spring 2001. The suit places the priest at St. John the Evangelist in Watertown, CT. The incidents were said to have occurred during what was supposed to be spiritual counseling in the boy’s bedroom.
In 2016 Tissera/Warnakulasuriya’s status with the diocese remains “Leave of Absence.”
Ordained: 1989
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