Sri Lanka's churches shut, Catholics celebrate Mass at home
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AMPARA, Sri Lanka -- Their churches closed for fear of an attack by Islamic State group-linked militants, Sri Lanka's Catholics celebrated Mass in their homes Sunday as the island nation's archbishop presided over a televised service, a week after Easter suicide bombings killed over 250 people.
Many across the nation knelt before their televisions as Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, delivered a homily before members of the clergy and the country's leaders in a small chapel at his residence in the capital.
The closing of all of Sri Lanka's Catholic churches -- an extraordinary measure unheard of in the church's centuries on this island off the southern tip of India -- came after local officials and the U.S. Embassy in Colombo warned that more militants remained on the loose with explosives.
Before services began, the Islamic State group claimed three militants who blew themselves up Friday night after exchanging fire with police in the country's east. Investigators sifting through that site and others uncovered a bomb-making operation capable of spreading far more destruction.
"This is a time our hearts are tested by the great destruction that took place last Sunday," Ranjith told those watching across the nation. "This is a time questions such as, does God truly love us, does he have compassion toward us, can arise in human hearts."
