STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Local leaders will be holding a press conference Thursday morning to update residents on the response to “several recent disturbances” at Catholic churches on Staten Island, according to a release from the borough president’s office.
The press conference will take place at St. Ann’s Church in Dongan Hills and will be attended by Borough President Vito Fossella, Richmond County District Attorney Michael McMahon, New York State Senator Jessica Scarcella-Spanton and NYPD leadership.
At the event, officials are expected to discuss a “multi-pronged approach” intended to protect local parishes, as indicated in the release.
“BP Fossella, DA McMahon and Senator Scarcella-Spanton, alongside the NYPD, have long partnered to protect houses of worship of all faiths, and the right of all residents to practice their faiths freely and peacefully,” the release stated, in part.
The press conference comes after a spree of criminal incidents at local churches in recent weeks.
On Friday, parishioners attending morning Mass at St. Ann’s were disrupted by a man who vandalized the altar and struggled with responding police officers. Ultimately, one officer suffered a knee injury and the other a laceration to the head, according to a law-enforcement source.
In another incident, the entrance to St. Sylvester’s R.C. Church was defaced with human feces during a Christmas morning Mass.
“While the mass was going on around 10:30, I was walking to the church to thank people, and I found human (feces) on the door. Smeared on the outside of the door,” The pastor for both St. Ann’s and St. Sylvester’s, Fr. Jacob Thumma, previously said.
In a third concerning incident, a 26-year-old man is accused of burglarizing the rectory of St. Roch’s R.C. Church in Port Richmond between Sunday morning Masses on Dec. 28.