Auxiliary Bishop Peter Byrne and Bishop John O’Hara (retired) led the parishioners in a Mass of reparation on Sunday, November 19, after statues of Christ and St. Francis were vandalized earlier in the month.

A string accompaniment joined the organ and chorus for the celebration of the parish’s regularly-scheduled 11 a.m. Mass. Sacred Heart Church, on Castleton Avenue in eastern Staten Island, was founded in 1875. 

“Desecration and destruction of Catholic churches have been going on the last couple of years throughout the nation, hundreds of them. It really came as a consequence, or at least in the aftermath of the Dobbs [v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization] decision of the Supreme Court, which overturned Roe v. Wade, and having a majority of Supreme Court justices that are practicing Catholics,” Bishop Byrne said in his homily. He noted that we may have “moved from the era of Christendom, back to the apostolic age,” that witnessing for the Church and the faith may become more difficult in the future.

After the Mass, Bishops Byrne and O’Hara, and concelebrants Father Rhey Garcia, Sacred Heart’s pastor, along with Deacon Jim, parishioners, and representatives of the NYPD, processed from the church to the marble statue of the Sacred Heart, its hands still missing. Bishop Byrne blessed both this and the statue of Saint Francis. The ceremony closed with a singing of the Hymn of the Sacred Heart.

In an interview with The Good Newsroom, Bishop Byrne indicated that a Mass of reparation is not just for the parish and its community, but also for the offender.

“You’re praying on behalf of somebody else. You’re praying for the conversion of people who might do something like this. I mentioned that we are entering into an era of the persecution of the Church, this is not an isolated incident. We’re praying for the strength to give the same kind of witness that the apostles gave,” Bishop Byrne said, hearkening back to his homily.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, November 1, Father Patrick Anthony discovered that the hands of a century-old marble statue of Christ had been broken off and were missing, the parish said in a statement.

The following day, Father Rhey Garcia, Sacred Heart’s pastor, and other members of the parish found a statue of Saint Francis in the church’s 9/11 remembrance garden had been decapitated, Deacon Jim Cowan said in a November 8 telephone interview with The Good Newsroom. The missing piece was later found and has since been repaired by a parishioner.

Both the New York Police Department (NYPD) and Staten Island’s Office of the District Attorney were notified, but as of Sunday, no progress had been made in the case, church leaders said.

The parish’s security cameras were not aimed in either statue’s direction and did not capture any footage related to the vandalism incidents, Deacon Jim said. Four nearby Christian houses of worship, along with a United States Post Office and a branch of the New York Public Library were not affected, he said. He described the church’s surroundings as a “quiet residential area” with no recent or long-term history of vandalism or similar acts.

To commit the acts of vandalism, the assailant was required to move off of Castleton Avenue toward the Christ statue, which stands about 70 feet from the rectory’s entrance. The St. Francis statue and the 9/11 remembrance garden are in a corner of the church property; the statue itself is not visible from the street and therefore must have been known to the person or persons who committed the acts. An NYPD camera has since been erected to monitor the area.

“God can draw good out of even great evils. As the parish of the Sacred Heart, let us prayerfully ask Him that the scourge of all descriptions bring about a renewal of reverence for all houses of the Lord, the altars of God, and the freedom to worship,” Deacon Jim wrote in his column for the Sacred Heart bulletin, “The Deacon’s Bench.”