CNA Staff, Aug 20, 2020 / 15:20 pm
After its statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary was beheaded, a California parish asked Catholics to pray for the vandal who desecrated the statue, along with another monument at the parish.
"It is heartbreaking to see desecration to an image of Our Blessed Lady, and distressing to try to comprehend why someone would do this. While we have no way of knowing the motive for this shameful action, we do know this: it makes no statement, advances no cause, and uplifts no one. It merely creates more sorrow in a time already full of it," Fr. Enrique Alvarez, pastor of Holy Family Parish in Citrus Heights, California, said in a statement this week.
The statue was beheaded late Monday evening. A statue of the Ten Commandments, placed at the parish "in dedication to all those who have lost their life through abortion," was grafittied with a swastika.
"I ask our Holy Family community to join me in prayer for the person or persons who would do this and who would seek to add to the sorrows in our world and bring pain to those who have done them no harm. Actions of this sort are likely born of inner pain for which we must have compassion," Alvarez said.