Contributed by Jane Dean

On the world news, I was listening to news about the fierce fighting between the Tamil Tigers and the Government forces in Sri Lanka.  It was happening near a particular Catholic church in which there was a statue of the Virgin Mary, purported to be able to heal snake bites and such unfortunate accidents. The ambassador for the Vatican in Sri Lanka (good gracious!) was asked to comment on the fighting (why?).  I was expecting to hear “please stop fighting, it isn’t nice, or some such platitude. What he actually said was (I paraphrase). “Please move the fighting away from the shrine.”