Sri Lankan archbishop calls for prayers for peace during Advent

Published: 2006-11-28

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (CNS) -- Archbishop Oswald Gomis of Colombo asked Catholics to undertake special spiritual exercises during Advent for peace in Sri Lanka. The archbishop urged Catholics to "make every Sunday a special day of prayer for peace," with a half-hour devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, reported UCA News, an Asian church news agency based in Thailand. He called for "a special prayer for peace at every pre-Christmas gathering for carols and also a moment of silence" as a sign of "our solidarity with all our brothers and sisters throughout the country afflicted by the war." "The peace process in the country has reached a point of crisis. The much-hoped-for peace talks did not take place as anticipated, and now we are back to square one," he said in a Nov. 19 message for Advent, which begins Dec. 3. The most recent round of the stop-and-start talks between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Sri Lankan government were held in Geneva Oct. 28-29, but they collapsed without setting a date for further talks.

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