Catholic Bishops in Pakistan have pledged about € 1,000 (US$ 1,400) of their own money for victims of the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

“We would like to make our humble contribution as a gesture of goodwill and Christian solidarity,” said Archbishop Lawrence J. Saldanha of Lahore.

“It is a token donation. We did not launch an appeal because people are already hard up and it was too much to ask. The Japanese Church has done a lot for us in past disasters, especially the floods last year through Caritas Pakistan.”

The president of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference also offered his “sympathies and condolences” in a letter yesterday to Bishop Martin Tetsuo Hiraga of Sendai.