24 August 1987

Bishop’s urge sexual equality

A press statement from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference was released on August 6, National Women’s Day. The bishops said that they especially honoured “those women of SA who have struggled and silently suffered for a long time to build a better country.” The statement continued, stating that the Bishops’ Conference is “committed to end racial discrimination” and that they “draw attention to sexual discrimination against women”, being “committed to achieving sexual equality of the human dignity of women as well, so that we achieve the ideal society of St. Paul.

 23 August 2006

Church shelling kills 15 people

A Sri Lankan government artillery shell, part of many fired at Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam positions, hit a Catholic Church and killed 15 people, injuring dozens who were seeking shelter from the fighting. According to Fr G Peter, director of a Caritas-run human development centre in Kilinochchi who had been coordinating food deliveries to the area, “there are many houses around the church, and people ran to the church to escape the shelling, but one fell on the church” of St Philip Neri in Jaffina. Although a ceasefire was brokered by Norway and signed in 2002, in recent months political; killings and accusations of ceasefire violations have mounted, and the Sri Lankan Bishops’ Conference has called for “urgent measures” to stem the “daily deterioration of the present situation.