Your report on allegations of war crimes in Sri Lanka made by the country’s two northern bishops (The Church in the World, 18 January) has now, alas, been since upstaged by yet another unfortunate high-profile intervention by Cardinal Ranjith. In the name of his Catholic bishops’ conference, he has distanced himself from the allegations. But his authority to speak on behalf of the conference over war crimes has been challenged before. And the fear of reprisals from extremists outside undoubtedly deters others from speaking up. The scandalous open disagreement needs urgently to be resolved for the sake of truth, justice and peace. Only then can reconciliation start. Meanwhile, the poverty and dispossession through several decades of ethnic conflict since independence in 1948 (a