CV NEWS FEED// A Catholic church in Sebastian County, Arkansas, has been vandalized for the third time in 18 months.
In a statement to CatholicVote, the pastor of the St. Leo’s Church, Fr. Joseph Chan, said the most recent attack happened on July 13th.
A report from FiveNews Online explains that in the most recent vandalism, somebody decapitated and knocked down a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which stood on St. Leo’s front lawn. Parishioner Guy Dickinson stated that he found the statue a few weeks ago, adding, “Why does something like this happen? I don’t know.”
Fr. Chan told CatholicVote that vandalism occurred on March 10th, too. People graffitied a racial slur on the front doors of St. Leo’s Church.
On February 26th, somebody altered the letterboard on the front lawn that announces Mass. Letters were removed and changed in order to spell out obscenities.
In a statement to FiveNews, Fr. Chan showed patience and compassion in his reaction to the incidents.
“It is disrespectful, but we really cannot judge on what’s underneath that,” he stated, adding that he did not know why somebody would want to vandalize the church. “It’s hard to say because then we’ll be presuming, but we can only say that probably someone is disturbed, someone who has expressed disagreement or even hatred.”
Fr. Chan also said that it was important to pray for the perpetrator and try to lead by giving a good example in dealing with the crime and encouraging the criminal to convert.
“The church is, I think, a forgiving church, and we pray more for the perpetrator than what’s going on,” he stated. “Hopefully, what happened to us will strengthen our faith and also will evangelize and convert whoever did this to the church, and for all churches for that matter.”
This is the 47th attack on a Catholic church in the United States this year, according to CatholicVote’s violence tracker. There have been over 400 attacks on Catholic churches in the U.S. since 2020.
