Vatican declares 167 victims of IS-inspired bombings in Sri Lanka witnesses of faith

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka's Catholic church says the Vatican has named 167 of its faithful killed in Islamic State-inspired suicide bombings six years ago as witnesses of faith.

Hundreds, including Christian, Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic religious figures, attended a vigil Monday in memory of the victims at the church of St. Anthony, targeted in the attacks.

Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, told the attendees Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints in the Vatican, has included the names of 167 Catholics who died in the bombings in the churches of St. Anthony in Colombo and St. Sebastian in Negombo “in the catalogue of the witnesses of the faith in its order book, considering the context of their heroism.”

He said they were chosen “due to violent opposition to their faith motivated by ‘odium fidei,’ the hate of the faith.”

Ranjith also said seven victims of other faiths were “respectfully remembered.”

Witnesses of faith are those who sacrificed their lives for their belief.

Pope Francis formalized in 2023 a new category of recognition by the church of people who lost their lives while professing the Catholic faith and created a special Vatican commission to catalogue their cases. The commission, based in the Vatican’s saint-making office, has gathered hundreds of cases, with a view to highlighting them alongside officially recognized martyrs of the church, who are on the path to possible beatification or sainthood.

More than 260 people, including 42 foreigners, were killed in the near-simultaneous bombings during Easter Sunday at three tourist hotels and three churches, two Catholic and one Protestant, on April 21, 2019.

The Catholic Church in Sri Lanka has demanded further probing in the attacks, particularly after British television Channel 4 interviewed a man who said that he arranged a meeting between a local IS-inspired group, National Thowheed Jamath, and a top state intelligence official to hatch a plot to create insecurity in Sri Lanka and enable former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to win the presidential election later that year.

Sri Lankan Catholics walk carrying portraits of the victims of the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks during its sixth anniversary commemoration in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

Sri Lankan Catholics walk past a statue of Jesus Christ outside St. Anthony's Church during a ceremony marking the sixth anniversary of the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

Sri Lankan Catholics nuns carry portraits of the victims of the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks during its sixth anniversary commemoration in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

Sri Lankan Catholics nuns carry portraits of the victims of the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks during its sixth anniversary commemoration in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

Sri Lankan Catholics nuns carry portraits of the victims of the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks during its sixth anniversary commemoration in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

Sri Lankan Catholics nuns carry portraits of the victims of the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks during its sixth anniversary commemoration in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

Sri Lankan Catholics carry portraits of the victims of the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks during its sixth anniversary commemoration in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Preparations for the conclave to find a new pope accelerated Friday with the installation of the chimney out of the Sistine Chapel that will signal the election of a successor to Pope Francis.

Vatican firefighters were seen on the roof of the Sistine Chapel installing the chimney, a key moment in the preparation for the May 7 conclave.

After every two rounds of voting in the Sistine Chapel, the ballots of the cardinals are burned in a special furnace to indicate the outcome to the outside world.

If no pope is chosen, the ballots are mixed with cartridges containing potassium perchlorate, anthracene (a component of coal tar) and sulfur to produce black smoke. But if there is a winner, the burning ballots are mixed with potassium chlorate, lactose and chloroform resin to produce the white smoke.

The white smoke came out of the chimney on the fifth ballot on March 13, 2013, and Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was introduced to the world as Pope Francis a short time later from the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica.

The chimney installation took place as cardinals arrived in the Vatican for another day of pre-conclave discussions about the needs of the Catholic Church going forward and the type of pope needed to run it.

These consultations include all cardinals, including those over age 80 who are ineligible to vote in the conclave itself.

In recent days, they have heard reports about the Vatican’s dire financial situation, and have had the chance to speak individually about priorities going forward and problems they identified in Francis' pontificate.

FILE - Visitors admire the Sistine Chapel inside the Vatican Museums on the occasion of the museum's reopening, in Rome, May 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, file)