3 Catholic churches in Lewiston vandalized in last 3 weeks, vandals caught on camera

Описание: Vandals have targeted three Catholic churches in Lewiston over the last three weeks.

Some of them were caught on surveillance video.

"We've had graffiti constantly,” Father Daniel Greenleaf of Prince of Peach Parish of Lewiston said. “That's a big issue for us."

Greenleaf says vandals seem to be lashing out against Catholic churches in Lewiston.

One woman, caught on a surveillance camera, went behind the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, peeked into a window and then threw a rock at it, which bounced off because it was plastic.

Greenleaf says another camera showed her throwing a rock through a front window.

"We went through the security cameras, and we watched this lady just pick up a rock and throw it right through the window," Greenleaf said.

Last weekend at Holy Family on Sabattus Street, someone broke two of the five small statues facing the Virgin Mary.

"There are three children in the statues of Our Lady of Fatima. And I saw the little boy smashed against the wall,” Greenleaf said. “And you could see a dent in the church wall. But the lamb was missing."

The lamb was later found in pieces at Our Lady of the Rosary on High Street.

"When one of our employees went to go look, she saw the smashed lamb on there,” Greenleaf said. “So, someone intentionally left here and smashed it against the steps at Our Lady, which is the other church we have."

Then on Saturday morning, a parishioner screamed as she tried to stop someone in a car from stealing the three remaining small statues outside Holy Family.

Lewiston police later found them in the back of a car.

"And it was an accidental find, really, because they were looking for something else in a parking lot. And they happened to look into a car," Greenleaf said. "The officer who came to get the report from us was the one who looked in the car and saw the statues."

The statues are now inside Holy Family. They don't want to risk losing the ones they still have.

The two smashed statues, now in the basement, cannot be repaired.

"Is this a hate crime against the Catholic Church? Because we certainly have our enemies, people who don't like us," Greenleaf said. "I don't know who they are and why they did it."

STORY: https://wgme.com/news/local/three-cat...

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