Days ahead of a major Marian feast day in the Catholic Church, a marble statue of Our Lady of Fatima on the grounds of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington was vandalized, with Mary’s hands and nose cut off, her face scratched and the cross on her crown broken off.
On Dec. 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, a spokesman at the National Shrine said that around 10:45 p.m. Dec. 5, the perpetrator got to the statue by climbing a locked fence that surrounds a rosary walk and garden that includes the statue.
Video footage showed a masked person doing the damage, which was discovered the next morning. Police were investigating the vandalism.
“Though we are deeply pained by this incident, we pray for the perpetrator through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary under her title of Our Lady of Fatima,” Msgr. Walter Rossi, rector of the National Shrine, said in a statement.
The Fatima statue and the garden around it were completed in 2017, the 100th anniversary of Mary’s appearances to three shepherd children in a field near Fatima, Portugal, with her message that Eucharistic prayer, recitation of the rosary and penance would save souls and bring peace to the world.
One on side of the National Shrine’s garden is the white Carrara marble sculpture of Our Lady of Fatima with the three child-visionaries at her feet, Lucia dos Santos and her cousins, Jacinta and Francisco Marto. On the opposite side is the crucified Christ, sculpted from the same kind of marble.
A vandalized statue of Our Lady of Fatima near the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington is seen Dec. 8, 2021. The statue's nose and hands were cut off and the cross on her crown was broken off. Shrine officials said that around 10:45 p.m. Dec. 5, the perpetrator got to the statue by climbing a locked fence that surrounds a rosary walk and garden that includes the statue. (CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn)
A paved walkway, symbolic of the thread connecting a rosary’s beads, circles through and around the garden, taking visitors past groupings of colorful mosaics that illustrate the 20 mysteries of the rosary.
On Sept. 23, 2017, Bishop Frank J. Caggiano of Bridgeport, Connecticut, blessed the new garden, walking to the Fatima statue, then around the path.
The blessing followed a Mass the bishop and other clergy concelebrated in the National Shrine’s Upper Church for 2,000 pilgrims from the Diocese of Bridgeport, along with pilgrims from the Philippines and China, the New York area and the Washington region.
Our Lady of Fatima’s message about prayer, conversion and peace that she imparted in 1917 “is as important now as it has ever been since,” Bishop Caggiano said in his homily.
“We come here to ask for her intercession,” he said. “She might lead every human heart to answer the question, ‘What is it that you are looking for?’ And we will answer it: ‘We are looking for your Son, and lead us to him.’”
Four years later, the attack on the National Shrine’s statue of Our Lady of Fatima became one of the latest attacks in dozens of incidents of arson, vandalism and other destruction that have taken place at Catholic sites across the United States since May 2020. It is also the second act of vandalism at a Catholic property in The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.
On Oct. 22, a swastika was found painted on the pillar in the parking lot at Annunciation Catholic Church in Northwest Washington, D.C. It was first discovered by one of the parish school teachers who arrived at the property prior to the beginning of the school day. It has since been covered up.
The D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), classified that graffiti as a hate crime.
At the time of the incident at Annunciation Church, Father Charles Cortinovis, who serves as priest secretary to Cardinal Wilton Gregory and also as the executive director of the Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, said reflecting on the incident could spur efforts “to educate our own parishioners to the existence of this kind of behavior and lead us to work to promote unity and tolerance and love for our neighbor not just in our parish, but in our community.”
In October, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has reported that at least 104 incidents have occurred across 29 states since May 2020. Incidents include arson; statues beheaded or with limbs cut, smashed, and painted; gravestones defaced with swastikas and anti-Catholic language and American flags next to those gravestones burned; and other destruction and vandalism.
“These incidents of vandalism have ranged from the tragic to the obscene, from the transparent to the inexplicable,” the chairmen of the USCCB’s religious liberty and domestic policy committees said in a joint statement included in the release.
“There remains much we do not know about this phenomenon, but at a minimum, they underscore that our society is in sore need of God’s grace,” they said, calling on the nation’s elected officials “to step forward and condemn these attacks.”
“In all cases, we must reach out to the perpetrators with prayer and forgiveness,” said Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, chairman of the Committee for Religious Liberty, and Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development.
“Where the motive was retribution for some past fault of ours, we must reconcile; where misunderstanding of our teachings has caused anger toward us, we must offer clarity; but this destruction must stop. This is not the way,” they said.
“We thank our law enforcement for investigating these incidents and taking appropriate steps to prevent further harm,” Cardinal Dolan and Archbishop Coakley said. “We appeal to community members for help as well. These are not mere property crimes – this is the degradation of visible representations of our Catholic faith. These are acts of hate.”
