{"id":1036132,"date":"2021-11-20T10:43:33","date_gmt":"2021-11-20T15:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1036132"},"modified":"2021-11-20T10:43:39","modified_gmt":"2021-11-20T15:43:39","slug":"denver-archbishop-decries-rampant-church-vandalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/denver-archbishop-decries-rampant-church-vandalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Denver Archbishop Decries Rampant Church Vandalism"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">12<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdenver-archbishop-decries-rampant-church-vandalism%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1036132&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/AP21163042429660-640x335-1.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">More than 25 Catholic parishes and ministry centers in and around Denver have been vandalized, looted, targeted by arson or desecrated in the past 21 months, Denver Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila reported Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>In a <em>Washington Post<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2021\/11\/18\/church-vandalism-is-soaring-heres-why-everyone-should-care\/\">op-ed<\/a> coauthored with Tim Busch, chairman of the Napa Institute, Archbishop Aquila notes that the Denver\u2019s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception was recently profaned with the words \u201cSatan lives here\u201d spray-painted in blood-red on the main bronze double doors.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>Along with this message were other \u201chateful graffiti,\u201d the archbishop writes, including swastikas, scattered across the cathedral grounds.<\/p>\n<p>Anti-Catholic vandalism is so widespread in the U.S. now that one would \u201chave to go back to the early 20th or late 19th centuries, when an influx of Catholic immigrants challenged a mostly Protestant culture, to find so much public antagonism toward the Catholic Church,\u201d the op-ed declares.<\/p>\n<p>Last month the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usccb.org\/news\/2021\/one-hundred-incidents-vandalism-reported-catholic-sites-us-may-2020\">expressed<\/a> dismay over the 100th recorded act of anti-Catholic vandalism, arson, and destruction since they began tracking the phenomenon in May of 2020.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThese incidents of vandalism have ranged from the tragic to the obscene, from the transparent to the inexplicable,\u201d declared New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, chair of the Bishops\u2019 Committee for Religious Liberty, and Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley, chair of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, in a joint statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese are not mere property crimes,\u201d the bishops declared. This is \u201cthe degradation of visible representations of our Catholic faith. These are acts of hate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In Wednesday\u2019s op-ed, Archbishop Aquila and Tim Busch observe that anti-Catholic attacks on religious sites have been accompanied by a wave of violence and vandalism against Mormon temples, African American Christian churches, Buddhist temples, Muslim mosques, and Jewish synagogues and cemeteries.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHate crimes, which include religiously motivated attacks, will likely set a 20-year record in 2021,\u201d they state.<\/p>\n<p>These \u201chorrifying attacks\u201d are indicative of a spiritual and cultural crisis, they write. \u201cPeople of goodwill, whether religious or not, must condemn and confront the societal trends that encourage attacks on houses of worship \u2014 trends that extend far beyond religion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>America has long been a place where different people with different views could \u201ccoexist in peaceful communities,\u201d they note, but now respectful conversation \u201chas given way to spiteful confrontation, and the long-standing attitude of live and let live is being replaced by live as I want you to live.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere once people strove for change through the force of intellectual, moral and well-considered arguments, the go-to approach for many is now brute force,\u201d they add. \u201cIt often takes the form of violence or vandalism.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEveryone has a role in lifting America out of this crisis,\u201d Aquila and Busch conclude. \u201cRegardless of our individual beliefs, we must regain respect for the dignity of the human person.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"twitter-follow-button\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tdwilliamsrome?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" data-show-count=\"false\">Follow @tdwilliamsrome<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More than 25 Catholic parishes and ministry centers in and around Denver have been vandalized, looted, targeted by arson or desecrated in the past 21 months, Denver Archbishop Samuel J. &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":1893911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1036132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1036132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1036132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1036132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1893911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1036132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1036132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1036132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}