The New York Police Department has arrested and charged a 38-year-old Queens resident with a hate crime of damaging a local church’s front doors and a statue of Our Lady, according to The Tablet.
The outlet reports that on June 21 a parishioner contacted Father Sean Suckiel, pastor of Holy Family Church in Fresh Meadows, after witnessing a vandal law enforcement officials have identified as Freddy Genao, using a crowbar to hit the church doors. Genao also destroyed part of the face of a statue of the Blessed Mother that was on the church premises. According to a July 1 report from QNS, Fr. Suckiel called 911. A nearby policeman responded to the scene and took Genao into custody.
He has since also been charged with criminal possession of a weapon due to the incident, according to the Tablet. Genao was arraigned June 22 and granted supervised release by Queens Criminal Court Judge Glenda Hernandez, who has ordered him to return to court Aug. 21, according to QNS.
The outlet reports that on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi — the day after the vandalism — Fr. Suckiel held a Eucharistic procession that went to where the statue was damaged.
“This is a very holy parish, deeply Eucharistic and Marian, and those are the two things that the evil one despises, so you’re going to see things like this happening,” Fr. Suckiel told the Tablet. “But you know what? We will get the statue repaired, and the statue will be here for many years to come.”
Holy Family Church has been victimized by vandals multiple times in the past. The Tablet reported that in 2024, the head of its statue of the Child Jesus was destroyed, and the church was vandalized with graffiti. In 2023, several teenagers reportedly destroyed the church’s angel statue, according to QNS.
This is the 513th time a Catholic church in the United States has been vandalized or attacked since May 2020, according to CatholicVote’s Violence Tracker.
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Author: McKenna Snow
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