Catholic schools, however, have stayed shut out worried that other Catholic properties could be targeted in further attacks. On Sunday, the Catholic Church held the first regular Sunday Mass since the April 21 co-ordinated suicide bombings, amid tight security. Later Sunday, Ranjith gave Sri Lanka’s Catholic school administrators permission to reopen on an individual basis in co-ordination with local security officials. There are currently about 40 schools run by Sri Lanka’s Catholic Church, which owned hundreds of schools by the time the Buddhist-majority island gained independence from Britain in 1948. In the 1960s, the state nationalized hundreds of Catholic schools amid a post-independence wave of Sinhala Buddhist revivalism.

Source: National Post May 15, 2019 03:03 UTC