Sri Lankan Catholic church to continue Sunday Mass on TV

Colombo: Sri Lanka's Catholic Church will televise a private Sunday mass after cancelling regular services over fears of a repeat of Easter suicide bombings that killed 257 people, a spokesman said.

Father Edmund Tillaka-ratne said public masses were suspended for a second week, but a service conducted by Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith will be broadcast on national television. "It will be like last Sunday when we had a service at Archbishop's chapel and telecast it live," Tillakaratne said.

Ranjith, who is also archbishop of Colombo, said on Thursday that a "reliable foreign source" had alerted him to possible attacks this weekend, leading him to cancel Sunday services for the second week. "The information we have from a reliable foreign source is that attackers are planning to hit a very famous church and a Catholic institution," the Cardinal said. Official sources said the Thewatte National Basi-lica, just outside Colombo, was the suspected target, and the military deployed hundreds of troops to search the area.

"There were no explosives found, but we have stepped up security," a police official said.

The government is going ahead with plans to reopen public schools on Monday, but the Church said Catholic schools will remain shut "until further notice".