Coming to a neighborhood near you?

How would you feel were your parish church to be vandalized and desecrated?  Yes, yes, I know that many of them already were, by the vandals within the Church who wreckovated so many beautiful churches and who build so many monstrosities based on effectively unchristian notions.   But consider… consider the invasion or your church, beautiful or not, by people who simply want to destroy out of hatred of our Faith.

From Robert Royal at The Catholic Thing:

Some European newspapers have reported lately – very quietly – that, according to police in Germany’s North Rhineland/ Westphalia region, from 2011 to 2016 there were 3500 cases of vandalism/desecration of Christian churches. About two per day in only one region of Germany, every day for the past five years.

[…]

Sts. Nunilo and Alodia, pray for us.
St. Lawrence of Brindisi, pray for us.
St. Pius V, pray for us.
Martyrs of Otranto, pray for us.
Our Lady of Victor, pray for us.
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
This entry was posted in The Coming Storm, The future and our choices, The Last Acceptable Prejudice, The Religion of Peace and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

13 Comments

  1. Maybe all parishes should pray the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel after each Mass?

  2. Mathieu says:

    It’s a very sad but true fact, but should we be surprised? Western society is happily rushing to hell. Before people were still scared of meddling with the occult, but now, it is a more than widespread practice. My grand-maman back in Québec says that the police there reported that they are scared to deal with cases of such vandalism involving holy places (cemetery, churches…) because it’s not natural what happens there. We need to go back in the streets with the Blessed Sacrament.

  3. un-ionized says:

    8 years ago somebody used a pickup truck to pull over our big statue of Our Lady of Grace out front and sledgehammered her hand. We figured they were trying to change her gesture. It cost a lot of money to get it fixed. Probably a prank here in the Bible belt but an expensive one.

  4. But how can that possibly be true? The USCCB has been haranguing us for years with the infallible teaching that all – all – immigrants are just lovable, saintly people.

  5. LDP says:

    I hear that the situation is not quite so dire on your side of the Atlantic, but here in Europe I fear we are well and truly lodged between a rock and a hard place. We have a clear and growing threat (coming in) from without: assertive Islam. Yet we also have a clear and growing threat from within: liberalism, secularism and increasingly downright anti-theism. Paradoxically, this latter threat tends on occasion to look sympathetically on the former. Anyway, there are simply not enough good Christians here, even if including so-called ‘Cultural Christians’ of a more conservative/traditional disposition, to effectively counter even one of these threats, let alone both simultaneously. Practical alliances may need to be formed. But do we cast our lot in with the Muslims, who may share some – yes, a few – of our values, but are liable to turn on us after any alliance against the liberals has fulfilled its purpose, and may then proceed to savage our churches, as in Germany? Or do we cast our lot in with the liberals, who though suspicious of Islam’s teachings, and desirous to coerce Muslims into conforming to ‘Western values’, in actual fact despise Christian beliefs also and have no true values to speak of, but rather ‘Western vices’. I’m not sure either option is really an option at all. Perhaps all we can do is sit back and trust in God. What else is there to do?

  6. tdhaller says:

    Most of those cases of desecration are ‘simple’ stealing, people prying open alms boxes and such… not that this isn’t serious, but it could be even worse. It’s not really an issue here in Southern Germany (yet), but with… the world in 2017 being as it is, the church doors are locked at night anyway.

  7. aquinas138 says:

    My parish was attacked by an arsonist a couple of years ago; it destroyed much of one side of the building and we lost icons and other sacred accoutrements. Even though it was inspiring to see the parish family come together and help with clean up and salvaging what could be salvaged and sticking together as we used a small school chapel for Divine Liturgy, it was still a terribly traumatic event. Some people have never found their way back to the parish, and I’m pretty sure it hastened our pastor’s (well deserved) retirement. In our case, the arsonist was just mentally ill, not religiously motivated, but still. We definitely need to pray for the perpetrators of these attacks and for their conversion, as well as for the protection of our parish properties.

  8. Martin_B says:

    It’s not just churches.
    In recent months there has been a growing number of cases where summit crosses have been destroyed.
    In one place , the summit of Schafreiter (or Schafreuter) near Tölz in upper bavaria, the cross on the summit has been destroyed three times.

    @ carolina publican:
    As far as I have been followinging the news here in germany, the cases that were solved have been committed by “ordinary” german citizens instead of imigrants.

  9. Genna says:

    According to reports received in the UK, (via independent news media, not the MSM), Germany’s North Rhineland/ Westphalia region is a hotbed of migrant crime. The German police and media do not disclose the ethnic background of criminals. As in Sweden, they tend to be called by the host nationality. The most info that is likely to come out about the perpetrators is that they are men of southern appearance.

  10. Andreas says:

    Might I recommend the “Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe” as an invaluable resource to consult in this regard. (http://www.intoleranceagainstchristians.eu/cases.html). It compiles and provides reports of this nature with the intent of providing “European Union institutions, the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the United Nations and religious institutions such as the Council of the Catholic bishops’ conferences in Europe with objective and reliable data on the phenomenon of Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe. The aim of providing this information is to help to take appropriate measures within their respective spheres of competence.” (Quote from website)

  11. Sonshine135 says:

    My Parish’s altar was desecrated in a very diabolical manner by a man and a woman a few years ago. The suspects are still at large to my knowledge. It was bad enough to the point that everything needed to be reconsecrated. There are people in the church that don’t realize that this even happened, so I dare say that there are many break-ins we hear nothing about.

  12. Semper Gumby says:

    Robert Royal wrote: “German authorities say that the North Rhineland/Westphalia church attacks are largely the work of salafi jihadis, who steal from poor boxes to help fund their activities.” Good point Mr. Royal. And that funding goes not only to some mosques but to some “Islamic Centers.”

    Andreas: Excellent link.

    Mathieu wrote: “My grand-maman back in Québec says that the police there reported that they are scared to deal with cases of such vandalism involving holy places (cemetery, churches…) because it’s not natural what happens there. We need to go back in the streets with the Blessed Sacrament.”

    Indeed. Not to be alarming or unsettling, here are two news items on desecration and occultists in the U.S.

    Last year WWL-TV New Orleans reported on the case of a 24-year old female- Devon Machuca aka Ender Darling: “Darling is accused of plucking human bones from graves and trying to sell them online. Court documents detail how the remains were advertised by Darling on social media sites like Facebook and could be found at a home on South Solomon Street…Court documents also describe how a Facebook user with the name of Ender Darling allegedly sent pictures to customers of remains found at Holt Cemetery…Court documents said some of Darling’s posts describe how the bones could be used in “curse work or general spells.””

    In 2015 the journalist Alex Mar published “Witches of America,” a book about her “journey” and participation in occult groups such as Feri and OTO. In chapter 17 Mar interviewed a man called “Jonathan” who is involved in the diabolical practices of Kimbanda (Afro-Brazilian) and Goetia (Aleister Crowley). “Jonathan” told Mar that he hopes to one day plunder the grave of “a priest, rabbi, or yogi.”

    St. Michael the Archangel defend us in battle, be our safeguard…

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