Daily Times

Sri Lanka’s Roman Catholic Church said Sunday it had forgiven the suicide bombers behind the attacks that killed at least 279 people last Easter. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith told an Easter mass — broadcast from a TV studio because of the coronavirus pandemic — that “we offered love to the enemies who tried to destroy us”. “We forgave them,” he said, adding that instead of retaliating, the nation’s Catholic minority had contemplated Jesus’ message of hope, and reduced tensions. The April 21 Easter Sunday bombers targeted three churches and three luxury hotels, killing at least 279 people and wounding 593. Last year Ranjith called for the government at-the-time to step down over its alleged failure to investigate an “international conspiracy” behind the attacks. That government, of president Maithripala Sirisena, lost November’s elections, with former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s younger brother Gotabaya taking the reins.