The EWTN News portal reports that Sri Lanka’s High Court has sentenced fifteen men to prison terms ranging from two hundred to two hundred sixty years for their roles in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings targeting three churches and three hotels, which claimed 279 lives. The Archdiocese of Colombo, led by the conciliar “cardinal” Malcolm Ranjith, welcomed the verdict while admitting the convicted represent only a fraction of the conspiracy, as a separate probe into alleged state intelligence complicity continues. The “Dicastery for the Causes of Saints” has enrolled 167 Catholic victims as “Witnesses of Faith,” while the “cardinal” opposes the death penalty for convicted security officials on grounds of “human dignity.” This spectacle of conciliar collaboration with secular power exposes the total abdication of the Church’s supernatural mission: the conciliar hierarchy rejoices in temporal incarceration while remaining silent on the eternal damnation of Muslim terrorists, the invalidity of the novus ordo “mass” in the targeted churches, and the apostasy of a “pope” who urges “dialogue” with Islam.
The Conciliar Hierarchy as Chaplain to the Secular State
The cited article reveals with crystalline clarity the reduction of the Church’s mission to a mere adjunct of the secular juridical order. The “Archdiocese of Colombo” — a structure of the conciliar sect occupying the juridical shell of the true Church — issues statements through its “director of mass communications,” Father Jude Krishantha Fernando, welcoming a verdict of a civil court operating under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. There is not a whisper of ecclesiastical censure, no declaration of latae sententiae excommunication for the Muslim perpetrators (Canon 1364 §1 CIC 1917: “An apostate from the faith, a heretic, or a schismatic incurs a latae sententiae excommunication”), no call for the conversion of the bombers’ souls, no warning that he who dies outside the Catholic Church dies in mortal sin and is eternally lost (Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus — Outside the Church there is no salvation, defined by Pope Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam, 1302; Fourth Lateran Council, 1215; Council of Florence, 1442).
The “cardinal” Ranjith’s statement — “Finally, we have justice” — betrays a purely naturalistic conception of justice. True justice, as St. Thomas Aquinas teaches, is iustitia est perpetua et constans voluntas ius suum cuique tribuendi (justice is the perpetual and constant will to render to each his due). The supreme due of the terrorist is not twenty years in a Sri Lankan prison, but the salvation of his soul through baptism and the Catholic faith, or, failing that, the just punishment of eternal fire. The conciliar hierarchy has forgotten — or deliberately suppresses — the words of Our Lord: “And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mt 10:28). This silence is not pastoral prudence; it is apostasy in practice.
The Antipope’s Complicity in Religious Indifferentism
The article notes that “Pope Francis urged Sri Lankan authorities in 2022 to clarify ‘definitively who was responsible.'” This antipope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio — the manifest heretic who signed the abominable Document on Human Fraternity with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar in 2019, declaring that “the pluralism and diversity of religions… are willed by God in His wisdom” — has not a shred of authority to demand justice. As St. Robert Bellarmine teaches in De Romano Pontifice: “A Pope who is a manifest heretic, by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head, just as he ceases to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church”. Bergoglio’s persistent refusal to condemn Islam as a false religion leading souls to hell, his participation in pagan rituals (Pachamama, Abu Dhabi), and his denial of the necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation (Ad Gentes 7, corrupted by the hermeneutic of rupture) render him ipso facto deposed. His “urging” is the bleating of a wolf in shepherd’s clothing.
The conciliar sect’s “Dicastery for the Causes of Saints” — a modernist invention replacing the Sacred Congregation of Rites — has enrolled the 167 Catholic victims as “Witnesses of Faith.” This novel category, unknown to the perennial tradition of the Church, is a surreptitious replacement of the dogmatic concept of martyrdom. True martyrdom requires odium fidei (hatred of the faith) on the part of the persecutor and the victim’s profession of the Catholic faith unto death. Were these victims attending the novus ordo “mass” — a Protestantized meal service fabricated by the freemason Bugnini, which the “cardinal” Ottaviani and “cardinal” Bacci declared in their 1969 Critical Study “represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass”? If so, they died in a rite that does not unequivocally profess the propitiatory sacrifice of Calvary, the Real Presence, and the priesthood. The “Dicastery’s” action is a canonization by bureaucratic fiat, devoid of the rigorous process mandated by Pope Urban VIII and Benedict XIV, and performed by an antipope who has no authority to canonize. As Pope Pius XII warned in Sacramentum Ordinis (1947): “The Church has no power to innovate anything in the substance of the sacraments” — much less in the substance of sanctity.
The “Cardinal’s” Rejection of Capital Punishment: Heresy Against Divine Law
The article states: “In August, Ranjith said the Church ‘cannot support capital punishment because it violates human dignity.'” This statement is formal heresy against the constant teaching of the Church. Pope Pius XII, addressing the First International Congress of the Histopathology of the Nervous System (1952), declared: “Even in the case of the death penalty the State does not dispose of the individual’s right to life. Rather public authority limits itself to depriving the offender of the good of life in expiation for his guilt, after he, through his crime, deprived himself of his own right to life”. The Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), promulgated by St. Pius V, teaches: “Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder” (Fifth Commandment). St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 64, a. 2) affirms: “Therefore if a man be dangerous and infectious to the community, on account of some sin, it is praiseworthy and advantageous that he be killed in order to safeguard the common good”.
The conciliar “cardinal” substitutes the Masonic slogan “human dignity” — a concept born of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man, condemned by Pope Pius VI in Quod aliquantum (1791) and Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus Errorum (1864, Error 77-80) — for the lex divina. This is the cult of man condemned by Pope Pius XI in Quas Primas (1925): “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed”. The “cardinal” thus aligns himself with the enemies of Christ the King, whose social reign he is bound to uphold.
The Invalidity of the Novus Ordo “Masses” in the Targeted Churches
The article mentions “three churches” attacked on Easter Sunday. It omits — as the conciliar sect systematically omits — that these were not Catholic churches in the substantial sense, but buildings occupied by the conciliar sect where the novus ordo missae is celebrated. This rite, promulgated by the antipope Paul VI (Montini) in 1969, defects in form and intention from the Catholic theology of the Mass as defined by the Council of Trent (Session XXII, Canons 1-9). The Traditional Latin Mass — the Missale Romanum of St. Pius V (1570), codified by the bull Quo Primum “in perpetuum” — is the only rite that unequivocally expresses the propitiatory sacrifice, the Real Presence, and the ministerial priesthood. The novus ordo, with its Protestantized “memorial,” “presider,” “table,” and “community,” is a fabrication of the Masonic lodge, as attested by the testimony of the “cardinal” Ottaviani and “cardinal” Bacci, and by the admission of the freemason Bugnini himself (“My work has been to strip the Mass of all that could be a stumbling block for Protestants”).
Therefore, the victims were not assisting at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, but at a simulacrum that does not avail for the remission of sins. The “cardinal” Ranjith, who presides over this apostate worship, has the blood of these souls on his hands for failing to provide them the true Mass and the true faith. As St. Pius X thundered in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907): “The Church is an enemy of the progress of natural and theological sciences… Truth changes with man, because it develops with him, in him, and through him” — this is the modernist poison the conciliar sect has drunk.
The Masonic Architecture of the “Investigation”
The article reveals a “separate probe into alleged state links” and the arrest of former intelligence chief Suresh Sallay, with the archdiocese demanding the investigation proceed “unhindered from any quarters.” This language — “unhindered from any quarters,” “full accounting,” “transparency” — is the rhetoric of Masonic “transparency” and “accountability,” not the language of the Church. The Church’s concern is not with parliamentary inquiries but with the salvation of souls and the rights of God. The 2020 release of suspects, the 2024 death sentences for police chief Pujith Jayasundara and defense secretary Hemasiri Fernando for “failing to act on intelligence warnings” — all this is the theater of the secular state. The conciliar hierarchy participates eagerly, because it has no supernatural mission left. It has become an NGO with religious trappings, a “field hospital” for the wounded of the world (Bergoglio’s metaphor), while the gates of hell prevail against it.
The very name “Easter Sunday bombings” — not “Paschal Sunday” or “Resurrection Sunday” — reflects the secularization of language. The conciliar sect has adopted the world’s calendar and the world’s categories.
The Symptomatic Level: Fruits of the Conciliar Revolution
This entire episode is a textbook manifestation of the conciliar apostasy predicted by St. Pius X in Pascendi and by the true popes of the 19th century. The Syllabus of Errors (1864) condemns: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Error 55). The conciliar sect has not only accepted this separation but has internalized the State’s categories: “human rights,” “rule of law,” “transparency,” “accountability,” “justice” as defined by the UN and the ICC. It has abandoned the rights of God (iura Dei), the Social Kingship of Christ (Quas Primas), and the duty of the State to profess the Catholic faith (Immortale Dei, Leo XIII, 1885).
The “Witnesses of Faith” innovation is the counterfeit of martyrdom for an age that denies the faith. The opposition to the death penalty is the counterfeit of mercy for an age that denies justice. The collaboration with Muslim “dialogue” partners is the counterfeit of charity for an age that denies truth. As Pope Pius XI wrote in Quas Primas: “If the kingdom of Christ… receives… the supreme power over all nations… then unheard-of blessings would flow upon the whole society, such as due freedom, order, and tranquility, and concord and peace”. Sri Lanka, a Buddhist-majority nation with a Muslim minority radicalized by Wahhabism, reaps the whirlwind of a world that has dethroned Christ the King. The conciliar hierarchy, instead of proclaiming this truth, applauds the prison sentences.
Conclusion: The Conciliar Sect is the Abomination of Desolation
The EWTN report, far from being a “Catholic news” item, is a bulletin from the occupied territories. It documents the conciliar sect’s complete integration into the Masonic world order: it celebrates secular verdicts, promotes novel “sanctity” categories invented by an antipope, opposes divine law on capital punishment, and remains silent on the one thing necessary — the conversion of all men to the Catholic faith, outside of which there is no salvation. The true Church of Christ, the Ecclesia militans, endures not in the buildings of Colombo where the novus ordo is celebrated, but in the catacombs of Tradition, where bishops with valid orders (consecrated before 1968, without the new rite of episcopal consecration of Paul VI) offer the True Mass, teach the integral faith, and condemn the errors of the age. “He that is not with me, is against me: and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth” (Mt 12:30). The conciliar hierarchy scatters. The true remnant gathers.
Source:
Sri Lanka jails 15 for up to 260 years over Easter Sunday church bombings (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 23.09.2026