The following is a Catholic Action League of Massachusetts press release…
There have been two more incidents involving the desecration of a religious statue at a Catholic church in Boston. The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts has learned that during the same overnight period when a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary was scorched by an arson fire at Saint Peter’s Parish in Dorchester, a second statue of Our Lady was desecrated at a neighboring parish only a mile away.
Sometime between Saturday evening, July 11th, and 8 AM, Sunday, July 12th, an unidentified person entered the grounds of Saint Teresa of Calcutta Parish—also in Dorchester—and emptied the contents of a trash barrel onto a church walkway and then placed the barrel over the head of the statue of the Virgin Mary.
Four days later, the incident was repeated. At 6:20 AM on Thursday, July 16th, a passerby discovered the same barrel over the head of the same statue. Saint Teresa’s church is located at one of the busiest intersections in Boston, at the corner of Columbia Road and Dorchester Avenue.
These incidents are the second time in recent years that Saint Teresa’s has been the target of vandals. In 2012, a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on church grounds was decapitated.
Since July 10th, there have been, at least, ten attacks nationwide, against Catholic churches or religious symbols. Churches have been the object of vandalism or arson in New Haven, Connecticut and Ocala, Florida. Statues of Our Lord or of His Blessed Mother have been burned, defaced or decapitated in Boston, Chattanooga, Queens in New York, West Kendall in Florida and Whitefish Mountain in Montana.
A devastating fire of suspicious origin at Mission San Gabriel in California is being investigated for arson by federal law enforcement authorities.
According to statistics compiled by the Catholic Action League, there have now been, at least, nineteen attacks against Catholic churches in Massachusetts since 2016, a more than 400% increase over the previous four year period.
The Catholic Action League is calling upon the Boston Police to undertake a hate crime investigation into these two incidents.
The League called the two most recent desecrations “an appalling, depraved and sacrilegious expression of contempt for Our Lady, for the Catholic Faith and for the Catholics of Boston.”
Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “It is becoming increasingly clear that these crimes can no longer be treated as a collection of random incidents perpetrated in isolation by disturbed individuals. The number, timing and frequency of these attacks strongly suggest that Catholic churches and religious iconography are being deliberately targeted for culturecide by the same left wing extremists who are committing mayhem against public monuments across the country.”
“These incidents are chilling assaults against the First Amendment. The first religious freedom right is the right of churches to exist and to be unmolested in their persons and property. Public authorities, most especially Governor Charlie Baker, Attorney General Maura Healey and Mayor Marty Walsh, must respond vigorously and forcefully.”
“They must condemn these attacks, and must use all of the resources of their offices to identify, arrest, prosecute and incarcerate the offenders. If they do not, these crimes will just continue.”
