‘Get them out!’
This was the deranged rallying cry of an Irish politician recently, as he slid into near convulsion screaming for the removal of Catholics from Irish life.
Since then, Catholics have been subjected to a number of high profile acts of violence and intimidation.
One of them saw the ruling Green Party surround a church in County Kerry in order to ensure that no homilies were preached in contradiction of their social engineering policies. There was also an incident where a group of young women entered a church and lit the altar on fire.
In the parish of Springfield today, anti Catholic vandals have violently attacked a local church.
The sectarian thugs smashed up a statue of Our Lady, decapitating it in the process.
In a post on social media, Fr. Bill Shaughnessy wrote:
Friends it is with deep regret to let you know that the Statue of the Blessed Mother outside the Church in Springfield has again been vandalised.
It is heart breaking for a number of obvious reasons, but this being the month of May when we not only pay closer attention to the Blessed Mother but many children would have taken their photo after their first Holy communion and it’s a statue that people passing by would constantly stop and pray. And they have been robbed of that again.
On top of it all, it’s a little prayer oasis that Christy Connelly and Christy Osborne have put massive work, money and energy to get it to where it is today. The statue itself having just last week, been re-painted, and the new seat installed using the money donated after the statue was destroyed last time.
I was due to bless the little grotto this coming Sunday after the 12:30pm mass in St Marks and had hoped that some of the children receiving their first holy communion would join him, and I plan to still do it.
Let us all say a Hail Mary prayer today for the conversion of those who may have taken ‘delight’ in such cruel vandalism.
- God bless, Fr. Bill.
In a follow up post, Fr. Shaughnessy wrote:
Hello everyone. Just to give people an update on the damage done to the Statue of Our Lady in Springfield. We have been greeted with a huge amount of interest from concerned people near and afar.
An Garda Síochána were notified of the vandalism. We have also captured on CCTV, footage of three youths walking down Maplewood Road at 1.05am last night. From the footage it is clear that it was a very deliberate act.
As a grouping of parishes we would also like to thank everyone for the tremendous support of phone calls, texts and donations. Much appreciated.
We are currently looking at trying to repair the broken parts of the statue but also using the funds donated to acquire a sturdy outdoor statue for the future. As it’s very obvious that this small area is used by a huge amount of people for a quiet moment of prayer every day. And again we would like to thank everyone for your generosity and kind wishes.
It is an interesting coincidence to note, that this week last year the Statue was also broken.
Friends an act like this can strike at the heart of what we are about as a Parish and can be very painful. However, it is important to remember that no matter how cruel acts like this may seem, Our Lady has already crushed the head of the ancient serpent. So no amount of damage to statues can ever take away the power of the Christian faith and the victory of Christ over evil. God bless you all. - Fr. Bill
The recent anti Catholic hysteria in Canada, the United States and France could very quickly arrive here and be twice as intense, unless the church starts standing up for herself.
