Ten months after a marble statue of Our Lady of Fatima in the Rosary Walk and Garden outside the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception was vandalized and destroyed beyond repair, a new statue has been installed and was blessed Oct. 23 by Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory.
Noting that “we have gathered here in joy for the solemn blessing of this image of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” Cardinal Gregory prayed that those who honor Our Lady “be of one mind with Christ and trace in their hearts the pattern of Mary’s holiness.”
“May they search for peace, strive for justice, and realize your love, as they pursue their journey through life toward your heavenly city, where the Blessed Virgin Mary intercedes as mother and reigns as queen,” the cardinal prayed.
The replacement statue is an exact duplicate of the original statue that was vandalized Dec. 6, 2021. National Shrine security camera footage recorded a man climbing the garden’s locked fence and attacking the statue with a hammer after cutting off the statue’s hands.
Msgr. Walter Rossi, rector of the National Shrine, noted that the replacement statue was carved following the exact specifications of the original, which could not be repaired after the attack. “Her hands were cut off, her nose and face were disfigured, and her crown was destroyed,” Msgr. Rossi explained.
Prior to the blessing, Msgr. Rossi led about 50 people who had gathered at the new statue in praying the rosary. Among those in attendance were Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and his wife, Callista Gingrich, the former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.
“Our Lady has asked us to pray especially for peace in our world that faces unrest,” Msgr. Rossi said. “Let us pray for peace in our world and peace of mind, body and soul.”
During the brief blessing ceremony, Cardinal Gregory called Mary “the model of the path and the practice it must follow to reach complete union with Christ.”
The Rosary Garden was completed in 2017, the 100th anniversary of Mary’s appearances to three shepherd children at Fatima, Portugal. The centerpiece of the Rosary Garden is a tableau of the statue of Our Lady with the three visionaries – Lucia dos Santos and her cousins, now St. Jacinta and St. Francisco Marto – kneeling in prayer before her.
“This image will remind us of the close ties of Mary to Christ and His Church,” Cardinal Gregory said.
The garden also includes a life-size marble crucifix and mosaics illustrating the joyful, sorrowful, glorious and luminous mysteries of the rosary.
In the past year, there have been multiple incidents of vandalism to Catholic properties in The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.
In October 2021, a swastika was found painted on a pillar at the parking lot of Annunciation Catholic Church in Northwest Washington.
In August of this year, St. Anthony Catholic School – located in the same Northeast Washington Brookland neighborhood as the National Shrine – was vandalized twice in less than a week. The school’s statue of St. Anthony was toppled and decapitated and benches were pulled up from the school playground, and later the principal’s office was ransacked, with a statue of the Blessed Mother and one of St. Joseph destroyed, along with Advent candles.
Also in August, vandals broke a window pane at another local Catholic church and put a running hose through it, covering the vestibule with water.
In July multiple fires were set inside St. Jane Frances de Chantal Church in the Washington suburb of Bethesda, Maryland. The Stations of the Cross also were taken down from the walls and the tabernacle was broken open. Local firefighters immediately extinguished those fires, which damaged some pews.
