Anchorage cathedral shocked but resolute in responding to vandalism

CatholicAnchor.org

During daylight hours in early December, Holy Family Cathedral was vandalized. Nearly life-size, solid-wood statues, including one of the Holy Family — the Infant Jesus, Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph grouped together — were toppled to the floor, the main altar was stripped, and even the top of the tabernacle — where Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is reserved — was knocked to the ground. That night, two intruders tried to break into the second floor rooms of the priests’ residence — steps from the church.

These acts are part of a growing litany of attacks against the cathedral: In November, someone torched an outdoor statue of Mary and defecated across the church courtyard facing busy 5th Avenue. In 2013 someone charged the altar during Mass; in 2012 two priests, including the pastor, Dominican Father Anthony Patalano, were physically assaulted.

The violence has anguished local Catholics and left them wondering how the cathedral walks the fine line between keeping doors open to all comers and preserving peace and reverence for the house of God.

“That’s the million-dollar question,” Luke Bowe told the Catholic Anchor. He is a parishioner, member of the cathedral’s safety committee and an Anchorage police officer.

“I think there’s so many different ways that question can be answered,” he said, and each has “a degree of accuracy.” The church hired a security guard. And now ideas — like installing motion detectors and security cameras — are under consideration.

But the cathedral under a steady siege is undaunted, explained Bernadette Frost, parishioner and director of St. Paul’s Corner book and gift store which sits on the cathedral’s campus. She said that in the recent attack, “the statue of Baby Jesus lost a few fingers, which means we just have to be harder at work to be his hands here; it’s a reminder that that’s what we are.”

RAGING AGAINST GOD

Increasingly, across the world and nation, Catholic churches have become targets for violence — from desecrating statues to killing Mass-going Christians.

“There is an anti-Catholicism today that has reignited itself,” Father Patalano explained. And it’s fueled on Facebook and the internet, he believes. Some of “the kinds of things people say are just not true and they’re filled with hate,” he observed.

Since his first appointment to the cathedral in 1983, Father Patalano has seen the results of such antipathy. On one occasion, Satanists stole from off the church walls the 11th and 12th Stations of the Cross, he said. Another time, an intruder defecated across the vestibule and spread feces over the walls and doors. There was an attack on the tabernacle with the precious consecrated hosts inside; for protection the tabernacle was later bolted to a chapel wall. And in the last three years since Father Patalano has been pastor, “we’ve had lots and lots and lots and lots of problems,” he said.

Aside from sadness over the recent attacks, parishioners are incredulous as to how anyone could strike out with such “disrespect and maliciousness,” Frost said. “This is our church, this is our sacred space, this is Our Lord’s house,” she observed. “What kind of a place is that person or people in that perpetrated that?”

Since the damage in the latest attack could have been worse, some speculate it was a crime of opportunity committed by a person or persons suffering from mental disorder or under the influence of drugs or alcohol — a big problem for downtown.

“Nobody took a hatchet to anything,” Frost said. That lack of “substantial” damage points to someone “who had no reason for doing what they did other than the fact that they could,” explained Bowe.

OPEN DOOR DILEMMA

Irrespective of their motive, the vandals are pushing the church — with its daylong open doors — again into a dilemma about security.

Being the universal church, the Catholic Church is open to all. Pope Francis has stated that a concrete sign of that openness is keeping church doors open.

“We have to be like the father of the prodigal son, who always keeps his door open so that when the son returns, he can readily pass through it,” the pope said in his first apostolic letter to the world. “The Church is called to be the house of the Father, with doors always wide open … so that if someone, moved by the Spirit, comes there looking for God, he or she will not find a closed door.”

Indeed, across the world, it’s common for passersby to step into Catholic churches during the day to pray before the Blessed Sacrament. Holy Family parishioner Jean Bennett sees this when she participates in eucharistic adoration, praying before the exposed Blessed Sacrament, from 3 to 5 p.m. on Fridays.

“When you’re there, there are people that come in, and they may only stay five minutes or 10 minutes or maybe 30 minutes or an hour,” she said.

But given the growing attacks in Anchorage, Father Patalano fears what might happen next if the church’s doors aren’t secured during the quiet hours between Masses.

“Are we just playing Russian Roulette here?” he wondered.

With those concerns in mind and in consultation with Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz the parish’s pastoral council and the safety committee, Father Patalano initiated a “temporary plan of action” in which the church is closed for more hours during the weekdays and Saturdays. On weekdays it is open 6-9 a.m. for morning prayer and Mass; it reopens at 11 a.m. for midday confessions and Mass. For now evening prayer and eucharistic adoration are cancelled. On Saturdays the church is open 8-10 a.m. and 4-7 p.m. with confessions heard 8:30-9 a.m. and 4-5 p.m.

Across the last several years, the church’s weekday closing time has moved from 9 p.m. to 2 p.m. now.

CHURCH’S MISSION

The cathedral’s pastor and parishioners share the concern that the attacks are threatening the church’s freedom to do its work.

In order to protect the cathedral’s antique Christmas crèche from thieves, Father Patalano told the Anchor in December that “if” it would be displayed in church, it would be just for the Christmas Masses — not through the long Christmas season that follows.

“It’s things like that,” he said, “and then all of a sudden you just say, ‘Well now, am I being right here? Am I allowing these people to affect us?’ Well, in a sense you do.”

Still, pastor and parishioners are serene about their mission in the midst of the growing risks and constraints.

“You can never eliminate all crime,” Bowe observed. “It happens every single day, it happens every single night. All we can do is just take the steps we can take — reasonable steps — to safeguard ourselves. And I think we’ve done a good portion of that.”

He noted that while the parish could install surveillance cameras, would-be attackers are always “on God’s surveillance — he’s watching them all the time.”

Meanwhile, Frost believes the recent attack serves to renew Catholics’ resolve: “It reminds us a little bit about the work we have to do” — namely, “peace and evangelization.”

“Nothing was done that wasn’t done worse to Our Lord,” Frost observed, adding that falling into a “siege mentality” would defeat the “whole purpose of our faith.” Everyone — including a person who attacks the church — is “made in the image and likeness of our God,” she observed, “and you treat them that way first.”

“We need to respect everyone and be considerate and kind,” added Bennett, who in a Facebook posting after the latest vandalism, asked people to pray for the culprits. Bennett believes it’s important to keep the attack in perspective – and also brace oneself for a scarier possibility. “If you think about all the other Christians that are suffering in places like Syria, we’re nowhere near that danger. And if that changes, then how do we react to all of that?”