Bhubaneswar (India) – During the night of 21st March some vandals robbed and desecrated a Catholic church in the district of Balangir, in the diocese of Sambalpur, in the Indian state of Orissa. In a letter sent to the faithful, the bishop Mons. Niranjan Sualsingh of Sambalpur wrote that some people had broken into the Holy Family Church in Titilagarh, taking the tabernacle and the collection box, and destroying a statue.
‘The thieves desecrated the Eucharistic species,’ he added, inviting the faithful to penance and prayer as a gesture of reparation. “The acts of sacrilege and vandalism have deeply wounded our community,” said Msgr. Sualsingh, who urged priests, nuns and lay people to ‘remain united in prayer and solidarity’ in ‘this moment of pain and sadness’, ‘entrusting the matter into the hands of Our Lord with contrition and penance’.
The bishop asked the faithful to be vigilant and to pay ‘the utmost attention in protecting our sacred spaces’, by walling up the tabernacle in the churches and keeping the key safe. Yesterday, Msgr. Sualsingh personally visited the community and when asked by AsiaNews about the matter, he replied that he was sure that ‘hope overcomes every trial’.
The parish priest, Fr Joseph Anthony, has filed a complaint with the police. ‘From the circumstances it seems that it was an act of robbery’, added the bishop. For his part, Fr Anthony said that it had been raining heavily that night and three people had also broken into the Church of North India, an evangelical church located near the Catholic parish, stealing a keyboard and the collection box there too.
