During the riots in Rome, some thugs broke into the Church of Sts. Peter and Marcellinus on corner of the via Labicana and the via Merulana.
Yes, these are the saints mentioned in the Roman Canon and it is a Lenten Station. A Crucifix was damaged. A yahoo carried out a statue of Mary, shattered it on the street and stomped it to pieces.
I found a story on Roma Sette that a new statue has been found for the church.
It was an initiative of the Centro Italiano di Solidarietà founded by don Mario Picchi.
Bad people do bad things. Good people get together and good things happen.
A lot more of this is going to happen and in many more places.
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Did they break in, or did they walk in? This I wonder. It’s not like the Church did not know troublesome people would be in the area. Sadly, locking churches might be more necessary in future. Either that, or a private security force. Of course, coded locks could also be used. New technology would allow the faithful access to the church via fingerprint scanners, for example.
Roman churches need to stay open for all pilgrims.
Too bad they don’t have some Knights of Columbus who could stand guard against these hoodlums.
I would have no qualms or hesitations in opening fire on anyone desecrating a Church, and I would not be aiming for the legs. These “protesters” are subhuman.
@Y2Y
?!? How can you say this!
I watched the footage on Italian television. The protesters broke into a shrine, broke the Statue of Mary, broke the head, arms and legs off of the Body of Christ on the Cross, and proceeded to throw these in the street, where these were kicked around by protesters.The shrine was near the center of the protests. Italian commentators called these people, “anarchists”, “communists” and “criminals”. Take your pick. But, the mob is not a mob. It is an orchestrated group of various anarchist political communities from around Europe. Economic-anarchists, collectivist-anarchists, individualist-anarchists, anarcho-syndicalists, and anarcho-communists. These groups have political “parties”, a loose term, in every country in Europe, in Canada, and in the United States. There is even an anarchists portal, which has links to the various groups. These people send representatives to these protests and the “black bloc” is highly organized in various countries, including Ireland. Americans are very naive about the danger these groups form, as they want absolutely no democracy, no religion, no churches, no institutions, but ones they support. Yes, ironically, some of these anarchists support an institutionalized anarchy. I would hope that the images will shock Americans who do not think it can happen in a widespread manner in the States-it can and will. These are not merely out-of-work teenagers, but those who study ways to terrorize capitalist democracies to bring these down.
The Churches need guns!
No, YoungCatholic, we need evangelists in the streets….
Skull Kid, I like the idea of the technology at the entrance. The Catholic churches in my city recently had to begin locking the doors after some nut threw a molotov cocktail in threw an open window, luckily no one was inside and the bottle did not explode. I am lucky that we have a chapel of the friars of atonement on the edge of the city that is always open and has confession twice daily!! Sadly some other nut smashed the corpus off the crucifix in front of the friars chapel this year. They had to replace that beautiful corpus with a plastic one due to costs. Now that I think of it, there are a lot of nuts in my city.
If only the wave of renovation after Vatican II had destroyed one statue of Mary…
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
pewpew:
Perhaps you may prefer to turn the other cheek? That is most certainly your CHOICE.
Don’t criticize those of us who prefer to RELOAD!
Jack in KC
If I were a man, I would definitely RELOAD!
These ‘professional protesters’ are anathema!
I’m tired of having to turn the other cheek all of the time! After awhile, you run of ‘cheeks’ to turn!
About time we Catholics got GOOD AND MAD when Our Lord and Our Lady are attacked in their images!
We’re supposed to be the Church MILITANT….not the Church WIMP!
Seeing that smashed statue, I’m reminded of St. Catherine Laboure’s words during the Paris Commune uprising in 1871: ‘They have touched Our Lady-they will go no further.’
Sorry for ‘shouting’, Father Z; just the sight of things like this really tick me off!
Should have added, ‘Run OUT of cheeks’.
Fingers didn’t catch up to brain when typing…..siiiighhhh…
I am glad to see the zeal for Our Dear Lady and Christ, but I do not think the Crusader stance is applicable here. Christianity is a religion of love and being the Church Militant does not mean necessarily physically fighting. If we were invaded by communists, Muslims, or anarchists who were killing our women and children as well as desecrating our churches, we could defend ourselves. We could fight. However, I do not think shooting anarchists who desecrate such a shrine will change hearts and minds. I sincerely hope one can reach out to these people before they die in their sins. If we must fight, fight. But, the first reaction of a Catholic must be evangelizing these anarchists, whose souls are in mortal danger. I do not want anyone to go to hell. I pray everyday for those who are far away from Christ. He showed us the way. It is much harder not to fight than to fight. Like the pro-life training some have had, we do not respond to insult or hatred with the same. The Blessed Virgin Mary loves those who destroyed her image. Those people, like us, are in the image of her Son, although, as St. Bernard said, “we have lost the likeness.” Pray, fast, be rational, spread the Gospel, be martyrs if you have to be or fight. If you haven’t seen “The Mission”, do. There are always two approaches in Catholic tradition, small t, to violence. St. Francis tried to convert the Saladin. Of course, he did not succeed, but he tried. Try to convert first, then fight if you must.
I’m glad that a new statue has been found. As Father said, good people get together and good things happen — perhaps this very violence brings out good that would not have happened under normal circumstances, maybe a response to Catholic goodness and truth stirring up some deep-seated response within those otherwise indifferent to the Faith.
Whoa!
Righteous anger? Yes.
Seeking justice? Right.
Killing persons trying to defend STATUES? That’s simply violating the fifth commandment. Come on people!
As a person who carries a firearm 99.7% of the time, I’m going to guess the quick-draw comments about opening fire and the Church needing guns are comments with little experience attached. The most serious consequence of carrying a firearm is the possibility of needing to use it. This is a sobering responsibility. Firearms have no moral agency or freewill and are merely tools, albeit dangerous ones. The only crowd I can imagine firing upon is one charging my wife or myself with murderous intent. One prays the civil authorities needn’t fire upon crowds, but long before any individual might need to do so, one suspects the mob will have been dispersed with other means. While we venerate our statues and images, they remain images and statues.
Here is a sad twist on this story. Last weekend, just after the riots in Rome, I found myself at a large eastern U.S. university at a reception being held at their Catholic chapel. While there I met a member of the Catholic chaplaincy’s board, a layman and an Italian, who had just returned from Rome, having left the day after the rioting. I made a comment about poor Rome burning, to which he replied, “Yes, but not the right parts. St Peter’s is still standing.” The smoke of Satan has certainly seeped into the Church. And some who claim to be her members are ardently fanning the flames. May St Florian preserve us!
And shooting bullets at those who commit sacrilege is as stupid as committing sacrilege.
campello,
Something similar happened at a small Episcopalian church in a village near my home a few years ago.
There was a beautiful old crucifix in the front of the church which was vandalized by some local bored teenagers [grrrr]. In fact, I think the corpus was made of ivory.
I don’t know how it was replaced, or if the parishioners couldn’t fix it due to the costs.
Supertradmum,
Usually I agree with you on what you say here, but I don’t this time.
These anarchists are, IMO, a lost cause.
No amount of ‘evangelization’ is going to change their hearts.
Their parents may have tried to teach them about the Faith when they were kids, and they gave up trying or else the parents weren’t practicing Catholics in the first place.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the parents did the same kind of thing in the 1960s.
And I’m sure that the schools had their share in creating these out-of-control incorrigibles, too.
All these beasts want to do is destroy everything that’s good and true and beautiful, and to heck with everyone else!
You notice they always mask their faces? You never see what they look like? They are cowards, the lot of them!
They have no souls, else they wouldn’t do such things!
I’m saying this both in sadness and in anger.
irishgirl,
You must never give up on anyone. I understand these people. As a very young person, I was an atheist, Marxist, anti-war demonstrator, egotist, leftist community organizer, brat, etc. and the Lord brought me back to the Faith. Thankfully, I had/have canon law friends and priests who helped me with the apostasy. Never, never give up on anyone. Never.
Whenever the Immaculata takes the hit, it is demonic revealing itself.
These people are armed insurrectionists and should be treated no differently than an invading army. Lethal force is not only justified in such circumstances, it is necessary.
If it were up to me, I would order the army to crush these protests with artillery fire & anti-tank rounds. A period of martial law would follow, during which the organisers, supporters, apologists and enablers of this trash would be rounded up and publicly executed for high treason.
Iconoclasts, literally
Sister Lucy wrote that Jesus told her the reason why the First Saturday devotion involves five Saturdays, rather than some other number:
My daughter, the reason is simple. There are five types of offences and blasphemies committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary :
1 – Blasphemies against the Immaculate Conception;
2 – Blasphemies against Her Virginity;
3 – Blasphemies against Her Divine Maternity, in refusing at the same time to recognise Her as the Mother of men;
4 – The blasphemies of those who publicly seek to sow in the hearts of children, indifference or scorn or even hatred of this Immaculate Mother;
5 – The offences of those who outrage Her directly in Her holy images.
Here, my daughter, is the reason why the Immaculate Heart of Mary inspired Me to ask for this little act of reparation . . (May 29,1930)
Y2Y,
That is exactly playing into the hands of those who will then take away your freedoms as well. Never wish for martial law. Never kill those who do not attack you or your loved ones personally. Never wish the death of anyone in serious sin. This is how the communists took over Russia; I highly suggest you read the late, great, Warren Carroll’s magnum opus The Rise and Fall of the Communist Revolution, the best book on the subject. The communists and Marxists allowed the anarchists to work for them, and then turned on them and created the worst tyranny in the West. Mao used the revolutionaries and then turned on them. Liberal Muslims just lost the day in northern Africa, in three countries, for the same reason, that is, letting the Muslim Brotherhood feed the rebels and liberals with guns and then turn on the liberals in Tunisia, Libyan, and Egypt. You will end up with a tyranny with your recipe.