Canadian Catholic diocese aims to repair defaced Stations of the Cross

June 30, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

CNA Staff, Jun 30, 2020 / 02:35 pm (CNA).- A Canadian diocese said it will aim to repair six statues whose heads and arms were cut off in an act of vandalism.

The statues were part of a walking Stations of the Cross at the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Sudbury, Ontario. Some statues were beheaded, while the legs of one statue were partially cut through. The heads were not found in proximity to the statues.

The vandalism is not part of the recent spate of incidents in which statues have been toppled amid protests in cities across the U.S., including two statues of St. Junipero Serra that were toppled in California cities.

David Sirios, an administrator at the St. Sault Marie diocese, told the Sudbury Star that the vandalism took place May 22, and was reported to the police then, but that the matter has only become public recently because police initially wanted to explore leads.

Protests in the U.S. began May 25, after the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer.

In Sudbury, no suspects have been identified, according to local media, and the investigation has reached a standstill.

Sirios told the Sudbury Star that the diocese has begun working with a sculptor to develop a cost estimate for repair.

“We’re looking at different artists who could maybe re-sculpt the missing pieces, and then re-braze them onto the current statues,” Sirios said. “If that’s not possible, we would basically have to re-pour six new statues.”

The Stations of the Cross were cast and placed in the early 1950s. The Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes was built in 1907 by the region’s French Canadian community, and remains a place of pilgrimage and prayer.

 

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Pope Francis expresses ‘shame and dismay’ over sexual abuse of minors in Bolivia

June 16, 2023 Catholic News Agency 0
Pope Francis at his general audience in St. Peter’s Square on May 17, 2023. / Vatican Media

ACI Prensa Staff, Jun 16, 2023 / 17:05 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis has sent a letter to the president of Bolivia expressing “feelings of shame and dismay” and a firm promise to work with the government of the South American country to end clerical sexual abuse of minors.

The letter, released Friday according to the Associated Press but signed on May 31 and addressed to Bolivian President Luis Arce, is a response to another letter sent to the pontiff on May 22 by the South American president. The pope’s letter was made public on May 15 on the official Twitter account of the Bolivian president.

“Dear Mr. President: I have read your letter and I thank you for the clarity and deference with which you share with me your concern, outrage, and condemnation and that of the citizens of that beloved nation, due to the deplorable events that have affected and continue to affect individuals sexually abused by members of the Church,” the pope wrote at the beginning of his letter.

The pontiff then expressed his sorrow: “In the face of the tangle of evil caused by those who, betraying their mission as priests, pastors, and educators — and who, as you express — committed ‘crimes that harm boys and girls for life, and that also harm the Church,’ I express my sorrow and my feelings of shame and dismay.”

In April 2023, a scandal rocked the Church in Bolivia when a report in the Spanish newspaper El País exposed the late Jesuit Alfonso Pedrajas Moreno for having sexually abused as many as 85 minors during his ministry. This revelation led to reports of more cases of abuse committed by Jesuits and other religious congregations.

At another point in the letter, the pope revealed that he was “moved and shocked” when thinking “of the disastrous actions of those priests and also of the negligence of those who should have exercised oversight.”

The Holy Father noted that the “ministers of the Church must be ‘guardians’ and guarantors of the good and of the future of the young generations, and stand out for propagating the attitudes and sentiments that have characterized the presence of Jesus among men.”

“This problem continues to be one of the greatest challenges for the Church of our time,” the pope noted.

Pope Francis also expressed to Arce his “firm desire to respond with the full cooperation of the Church to work alongside the government of your country.”

“I ask the Lord to help us to generously fulfill our duty to repair injustices and to always be faithful to the task of protecting those who are so dear to Jesus,” the pontiff concluded.

For his part, Arce thanked the pope on Twitter for his response, “in which he shares our great concern, outrage, and condemnation of the cases of pedophilia” in the country.

In addition, the head of state insists on the need to “strengthen controls to prevent foreign priests with a history of sexual crimes from entering the country.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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