(RepublicanJournal.org) – A New York church is looking for a vandal who destroyed one of its statues last month. The unknown man was caught on a security camera attacking a statue of the baby Jesus, knocking off its head. It’s part of a growing trend of attacks on churches.
Around 5:30 a.m. on June 30, a taxi pulled up in front of the Church of the Holy Family in Flushing, New York. The driver got out of the cab, took off a shoe, and used it to hit a statue of Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus that has stood outside the church for over 40 years. One after another the man hit all three of the stone figures until finally he managed to knock the head off the sculpture of Jesus. Father Sean Suckiel said his “heart just broke” when he discovered the vandalism and saw it on video.
It isn’t the first time the Church of the Holy Family has suffered from vandalism. Last year someone pulled a statue of an angel from its pedestal. More worryingly, there’s been a rise in attacks on Catholic churches across the country. Advocacy group CatholicVote says there have been 433 incidents over the last four years — with 268 of them happening since the Supreme Court’s draft decision to overturn Roe v Wade was leaked in May 2022.
Because the Catholic Church has always opposed abortion it’s become a target for pro-abortion activists angry at the decision. Some of them have escalated to illegal methods; many of the vandals have painted churches with pro-abortion messages. Churches in 42 states have been targeted but the persecution is most intense in ultra-liberal California and New York.
While pro-abortion liberals are definitely behind many of the attacks, they’re not the only ones who could have carried out the latest one at the Church of the Holy Family. Across large parts of the Middle East, beating someone with a shoe is a common sign of extreme hatred or contempt.
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