Cardinal calls for further probe into X-Press Pearl environmental damage

Colombo Archbishop Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith has called on the Government to further investigate the environmental damage caused to Sri Lankan waters by the X-Press Pearl, which caught fire and sank off the country’s western coast.

The Cardinal made the remarks during a meeting with representatives of the Catholic Church at the Presidential Secretariat, co-chaired by Presidential Secretary Nandika Sanath Kumanayake and Minister Krishantha Abeysena.

According to the President’s Media Division, the meeting also reviewed administrative issues affecting Catholic schools taken over by the Government.

Discussions covered the development of a mechanism to provide teaching staff for Catholic religious education, as well as progress in recruiting Catholic priests and nuns to the teaching profession.

Participants also discussed ways to secure greater support from the Ministry of Education for the administration of former Catholic schools now under state control.

Cardinal Ranjith thanked President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and the Government for holding discussions with the Catholic Church three times a year.

He said the Church’s objective was to ensure that all students, regardless of background, had the opportunity to study their religion and called for existing problems in the education sector to be resolved.