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Bishop of Derry accused of abuse cover-up

The Bishop of Derry has become the latest senior cleric to be implicated in the unfolding abuse scandal in Ireland. It emerged on Thursday that Bishop Seamus Hegarty was among the defendants in an out-of-court settlement in 2000 involving a silence clause. A woman who claimed she was abused as a child in the 1970s was paid £12,000 in compensation by the Diocese of Derry, on condition that she did not talk about the case. This weekend Pope Benedict XVI is expected to issue a pastoral letter to Ireland on the subject of abuse.

Cash crisis forces women’s shelter to close

Lack of funds has forced a British Catholic charity to close one of its safe houses for victims of human trafficking. Founded by religious sisters, brothers and priests, the Medaille Trust offers shelter and advice to women brought to Britain illegally to work in the sex industry. Its safe house in Southampton provided refuge for up to five women but a drastic fall in funding means that it has now shut. Ten jobs have been lost in the closure, while the charity has been forced to seek alternative accommodation for the women it housed.

Call for urgent rethink of Mexico’s drugs policy

The Mexican Church has said the Government’s bid to curb the spread of drugs-related violence through a mass deployment of the armed forces was creating “uncertainty” rather than “security”. In a pastoral letter issued last month, the bishops called for such violence to be treated as a public health issue as opposed to a military one, through changes to legal and social policies, including eliminating impunity for crimes. Since President Felipe Calderón’s deployment of 40,000 troops and federal police in 2006 the number of drugs-related killings has tripled to about 6,000 a year.

Muslim Council backs crosses in courtrooms

The chairman of the German Muslim Council, Ali Kizilkaya, has spoken out in favour of having crosses in German courtrooms after a controversy arose when a court in Düsseldorf decided against displaying crosses in its new court building. “Even if I personally identify myself with other symbols, the symbols of a well over a 1,000-year-old western tradition deserve our respect,” he told weltonline. The Düsseldorf court’s decision last month was sharply criticised by both the Catholic and Protestant Churches.

First Christian monastery in Sri Lanka opens

Sri Lanka’s leading prelate, Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith of Colombo, has founded the first Christian monastery in the majority-Buddhist nation. Its initial members are one Austrian and three Sri Lankans from the Cistercian Heiligenkreuz Abbey in Austria. Heiligenkreuz’s abbot, Fr Gregor Henckel Donnersmarck, said: "Until now Christian monasticism was not known [in Sri Lanka]. The new abbey will initially be founded as a diocesan institute with a contemplative character, with the hope of a future integration into the Cistercian Order.”

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