Boston, Mass., Feb 6, 2023 / 13:55 pm
In early January, a man entered a Benedictine monastery in Arkansas and began smashing the altar with a sledgehammer.
He was about to begin breaking open the tabernacle where the Holy Eucharist is kept, but something stopped him in his tracks: a statue of the Virgin Mary.
Jerrid Farnam, 32, of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, was arrested for the crimes of property damage and theft committed at Subiaco Abbey in Subiaco, Arkansas, and is currently incarcerated awaiting trial.
Sheriff Jason Massey of the Logan County Sheriff’s Office told CNA that when they brought the suspect in he confessed to the crime. But, Farnam told the police, after he looked up and saw a statue of Mary, he couldn’t continue to break open the tabernacle as he had planned to do.