A Catholic parish in Texas has decided to forgive and not press charges against a teenage boy who this week admitted to vandalizing the church’s outdoor memorial to unborn children.
St. Anthony Catholic Church in Robstown, Texas, discovered the damage on July 15, 3 News reported. The memorial, which features a prominent angel statue and surrounding benches, had been defaced. The statue was found toppled and missing a wing, according to church officials.
“Everything was a mess. The [benches] are all broken,” Father Rogel Rosalinas of St. Anthony told Kris 6 News.
A few days after the vandalism, the teenager returned to St. Anthony and admitted to causing the damage. The report indicates that several parishioners were gathered to repair the benches when the teen approached.
“The young man tells me, ‘I did it, I broke the benches. But I want forgiveness and I want to talk to the priest, I want to go to a confession,’” Gilbert Flores, a parishioner of St. Anthony, told Kris 6 News.
Rather than press charges, the parishioners chose to pray with him and offer guidance and support.
“He [was] embracing each one of them, and everyone who was there was giving him some words of inspiration, some words of love and forgiveness,” Fr. Rosalinas said.
>> Tracker: 500 Attacks on U.S. Catholic Churches Since May 2020 <<
The post Texas parish forgives teen who confessed to vandalizing pro-life memorial appeared first on CatholicVote org.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Rachel Quackenbush
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://catholicvote.org and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.
