Holy Week began with the great fire at Notre Dame, and the surprise was that it wasn’t arson, a deliberate attack, but an apparent accident. Holy Week ended with the Islamist bombings of churches and hotels in Sri Lanka, killing some 350 people, and wounding many others. In 2015, Islamist terrorists attacked Garissa University in Garissa, Kenya, killing 148 people during Holy Week. In the aftermath of the Sri Lanka bombings, senior security officials have been fired for failing to heed intelligence warnings that attacks were imminent. I was in Sri Lanka in January 2015 for the visit of Pope Francis, who came to canonize Sri Lanka’s first saint, Joseph Vaz.

Source: National Post April 25, 2019 09:56 UTC