News Briefs

Churches vandalized in Vancouver archdiocese

June 16, 2021 Catholic News Agency 0
A prolife memorial at St. Joseph’s church in Port Moody, Canada, that was vandalized June 13, 2021. Credit: St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.

Vancouver, Canada, Jun 16, 2021 / 18:29 pm (CNA).

Two parishes in the Archdiocese of Vancouver were vandalized last weekend.

The incidents come shortly after the discovery of the remains of 215 indigenous children in unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School.

At St. Augustine’s parish in Vancouver on June 12, vandals wrote ‘release the records’ and ‘killers’ on the front door of the church.

A parishioner at St. Augustine’s told Global News in an interview that the incident was sad. “We had nothing to do with what happened with those poor kids,” the parishioner said. 

St. Joseph’s Church in Port Moody, about 10 miles east of Vancouver, was also found vandalized the morning of June 13. A pro-life memorial gravestone was knocked to the ground, while the stone on which it was standing has been broken.

Fr. Mark McGuckin, pastor of St. Joseph’s, told CNA around the same time the memorial was knocked over, new building developments next to the parish had been burning down in what likely was an incident of arson. 

McGuckin considered himself and his church community “very fortunate and blessed” because of the damp weather conditions. “The fire was so hot that flying embers landed on our church roof,” he told CNA, “and had it been three weeks of real dry season that could have really caught on fire.”

“I think it’s unrelated,” Fr. McGuckin said, doubting the connection between the vandalism at St. Augustine’s and the vandalism at his church. “We would have had clearer messaging around the residential school if that was someone who wanted to express themselves that way.”

The pro-life gravestone has been temporarily fixed but lays at a 45 degree angle, while it awaits full refurbishment.

Fr. McGuckin told CNA that over the weekend, there had been peaceful protests at Catholic churches in the area.

On the weekend of May 22, the remains of 215 indigenous children were found in unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. The discovery was made with ground-penetrating radar. It is unclear how the children died.

St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Kamloops was vandalized following the discovery. Graffiti reading ‘banished’, ‘evicted’, and ‘crime scene’ was found spray painted on the walls of St. Joseph’s May 31. An ‘X’ was on the front doors.

The chief of the Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc, or Kamloops Indian Band, has condemned the vandalism of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Kamloops shortly after the discovery of indigenous children’s graves at a nearby Church-run residential school.

“We are deeply disturbed to learn that the Saint Joseph’s church was vandalized. The church was built from the ground up by Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc members. We understand the many emotions connected to a Roman Catholic run residential school. At the same time, we respect the choices that Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc ancestors made, over a 100 years ago, to erect this church,” read a May 31 statement from Rosanne Casimir, the band’s chief.


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Nuncio urges US bishops to unity in Christ

June 16, 2021 Catholic News Agency 3
Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the US, addresses the USCCB’s 2020 Fall General Assembly.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 16, 2021 / 15:19 pm (CNA).

Following the Covid-19 pandemic the Church needs to dialogue with an aim of unity, and emphasize the importance of Christ, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States, said to the USCCB’s assembly on Wednesday. 

The assembly is taking place virtually via video conference. 

“I am firmly convinced that emerging from the pandemic, we need to be a Church that proclaims, with conviction, the basic kerygma and the person of Jesus Christ,” Archbishop Pierre said June 16.

“And we need to be a Church that follows the method of Jesus, which is one of accompaniment and dialogue, a dialogue directed toward salvation.”

Archbishop Pierre said there was a need for unity in the Church in America, noting that while this is a challenge, it is one that has been met before in other trying times. 

“In response to the abuse crisis, it answered with a unified and concerted effort that showed care and compassion for the plight of survivors; it provided for the needs of the immigrant community; it stood in solidarity with our persecuted brothers and sisters throughout the world by providing material and spiritual closeness; it came to the rescue of those affected by natural disasters; it spoke with one voice in defense of the dignity of all peoples and against the scourge of racial inequality,” said Archbishop Pierre. 

“These examples point to the undeniable truth that unity is possible and that the Church in the United States has numerous experiences of it.”

The bishops, he said, have a particularly important role to play in ensuring that this unity is achieved. He noted that the four dimensions of dialogue described by St. John Paul II in the 1995 encyclical Ut unum sint “can be helpful to illumine the path towards greater unity,” even though they were not written with this particular situation in mind. 

Those four dimensions–the dialogue of charity, of conversion, of truth, and of salvation–all play a role in helping to better unite the Christian people. 

Archbishop Pierre highlighted the need for the Church after the pandemic to center its evangelical efforts on the saving work of Christ, pointing out that “Christianity offers more than an NGO or a social service organization.” 

“The Church offers salvation in the person of Jesus Christ,” he said. 

“What is often lacking in the process of evangelization, and we certainly need to evangelize and catechize now more than ever, is ‘beginning again from Jesus Christ,’’’ said Archbishop Pierre. ’

“The starting point, therefore, cannot be to shame the weak, but to propose the One who can strengthen us to overcome our weaknesses, especially through the sacraments of reconciliation and the Eucharist,” he said. 

“With respect to the latter, Holy Communion is not merely a ‘thing’ to be received but Christ Himself, a Person to be encountered.”

Archbishop Pierre stressed the need to center the Church on Christ, saying that “a Catholicism that confuses itself with a mere cultural tradition or which cannot distinguish itself from other proposals, including political or ideological ones that are based on certain values, will never be convincing to this generation or to new ones.”

“Jesus Christ is a Person, not a concept,” he said.


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