On a mission: President Bush (right), with the President of Israel, Shimon Peres, as he arrives at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, on Wednesday, for a week-long tour of the Middle East. Mr Bush said: “We see a new opportunity for peace here in the Holy Land, and for freedom across the region.” He was to hold talks with Mr Peres and the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, and then yesterday to meet the Palestinian Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas

RCs to pray for paedophile cleansing

Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the Prefect of the Congregation of the Clergy, has said that the Pope wants Roman Catholics to pray “in perpetuity” to express the penance of the Church in allowing paedophile clergy in its ranks. They should ask for “the mercy of God for the victims of the grave situations caused by the moral and sexual conduct of a very small part of the clergy”. Parishes should designate a person or group to continue the prayer, and they could organise shifts to ensure it continued 24 hours a day, he said. The prayers would be in addition to the Church’s support for legal action against paedophile priests by those they had offended against.

Sri Lankan bishop condemns killings

THE Bishop of Colombo, the Rt Revd Duleep de Chickera, spoke out last week against the assassination of the parliamentarian T. Maheswaran on New Year’s Day, and the bomb that killed four people, including two children, on 2 January. The politician was gunned down at a Hindu temple. The killings must be condemned outright, said the Bishop. He offered his condolences: “Horrific human initiated incidents like these jolt and remind us that the promotion and justification of war through the promise of an illusive peace is immoral, misleading, and counter-productive.”