When did the desecration of houses of worship become normal?

The images of vandalism in February at Holy Innocents School in Long Beach, California, were shocking, and yet all too familiar. A knocked-over tabernacle. A smashed statue of the Virgin Mary. Classrooms trashed.

As a mom of children in Catholic schools, the photos hurt my heart. Most especially when I think of the confusion it must cause the innocent children who go to school there. Those little, holy innocents.

I wasn’t surprised to see one staff member in an interview with local news struggling to find words because she was so emotional. This is deeply personal and painful, not just for them, but for all Catholics.

Mere months after a gunman invaded a Catholic school Mass in Minneapolis in August – fatally shooting two children who were praying and then desecrating the statue of the holy family – the attack on the Long Beach school felt particularly sinister.  

It was “as if the goal was destruction itself,” Holy Innocents School posted on social media: “Whoever did this didn’t just steal. They targeted. They attempted to pry open the Tabernacle. They destroyed items that are irreplaceable, both........

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