Sadness and outrage in Costa Rica’s Catholic community after an individual desecrated the Santo Cristo de Esquipulas National Shrine, causing significant material damage in an attempt to steal money.
Newsroom (17/01/2022 15:13, Gaudium Press) Desecrations of Catholic churches continue globally.
According to the spokesman of the Diocese of Tilarán-Liberia, Gustavo Wattson, “after the celebration of the Christ of Esquipulas, in the early hours of Sunday morning, the Church of Santa Cruz was invaded, the urn of the image of El Negrito appeared broken and fallen on the floor of the church and the offering box also appeared open”.
Despite the damage, the diocese communicated that the image of the Holy Christ of Esquipulas “did not suffer any damage”, because “the image is placed in a safe place when the religious activities in the church end. No money was stolen, because this same practice is followed with the funds that all our faithful so generously donate for the work of evangelization of the people of Santa Cruz.”
Also to be noted is that there were no acts of desecration against the Blessed Sacrament or the altar, but there was damage to the urn of the patron saint and the shrine.
“We understand the intolerance to expressions of our faith and the needs in these new times and while we can never justify these acts; we express our love and forgiveness to the perpetrator of this act with the gospel in our hands and in our hearts and we invite them to a conversion of life,” Gustavo Wattson concluded.
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