Images of the Blessed Virgin Mary Destroyed
In Italy, a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary was decapitated and then broken into pieces by a group in March 2019. Multiple statues of the Virgin Mary were destroyed in one area in April 2019 and two more statues of the Virgin Mary were destroyed in Dec. 2019.
A shrine in Spain dedicated to the Virgin Mary was defecated in. The church's walls and a statue of Jesus Christ were smeared with excrement.
France also had a number of attacks against images of the Virgin Mary, including vandalism of a replica of the Lourdes Grotto in Oct. 2019, vandalism of statues of Mary in July and November, the destruction of two statues of Mary in April and August, and a statue stolen in October.
In Poland, four rosary chapels were vandalized with offensive graffiti in Feb. 2019 and a statue of the Virgin Mary was vandalized with anti-Christian messages in May. Poland also had four incidents in which statues of St. John Paul II were vandalized.
Arson attacks on churches
There were at least 20 arson attacks against churches in France recorded in the data for 2019. In Dec. 2019, the nave of a church was set on fire during Sunday Mass. In other incidents, confessionals and altars were set on fire. A similar number of arson attacks against Christian churches in Germany were documented in 2019, and six arson incidents were also documented in Italy.
In the United Kingdom, there were eight arson attacks against Christian churches, including at least one Catholic church.
A convent in Spain was the target of arson a few days after it was vandalized with paint in Sept. 2019. A statue of Jesus was set on fire in November and a church's altar was set alight twice in two weeks among other arson attacks.
The participants in the Catholic bishops' conference in Spain also received numerous threats of an arson attack in 2019.
Courtney Mares is a Rome Correspondent for Catholic News Agency. A graduate of Harvard University, she has reported from news bureaus on three continents and was awarded the Gardner Fellowship for her work with North Korean refugees.