The effects of Sri Lanka’s Easter suicide bombings reverberated across two faiths. Catholics shut out of their churches for fear of new attacks, left with only a televised Mass, and Muslim women ordered to stop wearing veils in public.

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. Meanwhile the tension remains high for the Christian community. Card. Malcolm Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo, after refusing the armoured car made available by the government, announced the reopening of the churches from May 5, with the celebration of Mass.