{"id":315448,"date":"2026-08-06T19:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T19:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/315448\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T19:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T19:52:10","slug":"brooklyn-new-york-catholic-church-suffers-fourth-vandalism-attack-in-2-years-with-destruction-of-mary-statue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/315448\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn, New York, Catholic church suffers fourth vandalism attack in 2 years with destruction of Mary statue"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Catholic parish in New York has suffered what the Diocese of Brooklyn says is the fourth incident of vandalism in two years after a man destroyed a statue of the Blessed Mother in an early-morning attack. <\/p>\n

The destructive episode at St. Rita Roman Catholic Church in the neighborhood of Long Island City in Queens occurred on Aug. 1 when a man jumped a fence around the courtyard of the parish and smashed a statue of the Virgin Mother with a hammer. <\/p>\n

Photos of the attack showed the statue of Mary knocked off its pedestal and in pieces. <\/p>\n

\"Cloudinary<\/p>\n

A statue of the Blessed Mother lies in pieces after a vandalism incident at St. Rita Catholic Church in New York City, Aug. 1, 2026. | Credit: Photo courtesy of the Diocese of Brooklyn\/St. Rita Catholic Church<\/p>\n

The Brooklyn Diocese said in a news release<\/a> that the New York Police Department is investigating the incident as a hate crime. A diocesan spokesman told EWTN News that no arrests had yet been made in the case as of the morning of Aug. 6. <\/p>\n

The diocese said the attack was the fourth of a series of incidents of vandalism at the parish since 2024. In previous attacks vandals smashed a stained-glass window and defaced statues of both St. Francis of Assisi and St. Jude. <\/p>\n

Numerous other New York-area parishes have also been vandalized in recent years. Among them was an October 2024 incident<\/a> at St. Th\u00e9r\u00e8se of Lisieux Church in Brooklyn in which a man vandalized two statues, one of the Blessed Mother and one of St. Th\u00e9r\u00e8se of Lisieux. <\/p>\n

Similar incidents<\/a> occurred at other churches in 2023, including at two parishes also located in Brooklyn. A February 2024 report by the Family Research Council found an uptick in hostility and vandalism<\/a> against churches in the U.S., particularly Catholic parishes. <\/p>\n

In January, New York State Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton called for increased security for churches<\/a> after multiple crimes at Catholic parishes on Staten Island. <\/p>\n

Church, the state senator said at the time, \u201cis a place of peace and reflection; nobody should feel unsafe where they pray.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recent data from the Vienna-based Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe, meanwhile, showed that church arson attacks across Europe nearly doubled in 2024.<\/a><\/p>\n

The fire attacks were part of a broader surge in anti-Christian hate crimes that included 274 personal assaults against Christians and the killing of a 76-year-old Spanish monk, according to the report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Catholic parish in New York has suffered what the Diocese of Brooklyn says is the fourth incident…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,3734,23130,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-315448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-catholic-news","tag-diocese-of-brooklyn","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}