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Kochi, India, Oct 14, 2017 / 04:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Both Hindu and Catholic schoolchildren in India claim to have witnessed an apparition of Christ and several appearances of the Virgin Mary accompanied by the scent of jasmine, the gift of contrition, and the healing of a girl’s ear problem. The site of the alleged apparitions is St. Ambrose Church and Lower Primary School in Edavanakkad, in the far southwestern state of Kerala, 16 miles northwest of Kochi. The parish and adjacent school are under the Archdiocese of Verapoly. The Marian apparitions are said to have happened on at least...

Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil, the head of India’s autonomous Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, died in Kochi, India on April 1 of heart disease. The 84-year-old cardinal, who had cut back on his public activities after surviving a serious heart attack in 2009, suffered another attack soon after celebrating Mass in is private chapel. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, but died soon thereafter. A Redemptorist priest, then-Father Varkey Vithayathil was named apostolic administrator of Ernakulum, the primatial see of the Syro-Malabar Church, in 1996, upon the retirement of Cardinal Antony Padiyara. In 1999 he was formally named as...

NEW DELHI: A high alert has been sounded at all airports in the country, particularly those in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, following threats of a possible terror attack by Al-Qaida. The security alert was issued on Thursday morning after the Director of Trichy Airport in Tamil Nadu received an anonymous letter warning of an attack by Al-Qaida at airports or on aircraft in South India. The letter said about 10 Al-Qaida terrorists will break the security cordon and carry out attacks at airports. The airports that are placed on high alert are Chennai, Kochi, Trichy, Thiruvananthapuram and Coimbatore. The...