“Finally,” he said, “we are grateful to the police departments that have responded to these incidents, and to the numerous community members who, regardless of their beliefs, have reached out to our parishes and offered support and help in cleaning up after these attacks.”
Other incidents of vandalism and theft have occurred at churches in Northern Colorado in recent months.
St. Louis parish in Louisville, Colorado was vandalized with pro-abortion graffiti in early September.
In late August, the predominantly African-American parish of Curé d'Ars, located in north Denver, was targeted for burglary. All the church's vessels used for Mass were stolen from the vestry, which the thieves accessed by kicking in a wooden door. The thieves also cut out copper piping, flooding the church basement with water. By late September, some of the stolen items - including the tabernacle and church vessels - were found; stolen consecrated hosts had not yet been recovered and were “obviously dumped,” according to the parish deacon.
In June, Holy Ghost Catholic Church in downtown Denver was tagged with red graffiti in a possible reference to the ongoing controversy over former Catholic-run schools for Indigenous in Canada, though the exact motive remains unclear.
The U.S. bishops’ conference on Oct. 14 reported that churches and Catholic sites have been targeted in more than 100 acts of vandalism, arson, and other destruction since May 2020. The conference began tracking such attacks on churches in May 2020, and now says that at least 101 incidents have occurred in 29 states since then.
“These incidents of vandalism have ranged from the tragic to the obscene, from the transparent to the inexplicable. There remains much we do not know about this phenomenon, but at a minimum, they underscore that our society is in sore need of God’s grace,” stated Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City on Thursday, Oct. 14.
Joseph Bukuras is a journalist at the Catholic News Agency. Joe has prior experience working in state and federal government, in non-profits, and Catholic education. He has contributed to an array of publications and his reporting has been cited by leading news sources, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the Catholic University of America. He is based out of the Boston area.