MUMBAI, India – Vandals on March 21 robbed and desecrated a Catholic Church in Odisha’s Balangir district in the Diocese of Sambalpur in India.
The next day, Bishop Niranjan Sualsingh of Sambalpur said some people broke open the Holy Family Church at Titilagarh and took away the tabernacle and the donation box, also destroying a statue.
“The thieves have desecrated the species,” he added.
The bishop has urged his faithful to do penance and prayers as reparation after some miscreants desecrated the sacred species during a robbery.
“The acts of sacrilege and vandalism have deeply wounded our faith community,” said Sualsingh.
He urged the priests, nuns and lay people in his diocese to “stand united in prayer and solidarity” in “this moment of pain and sorrow.”
The bishop urged them to pray for strength, peace and justice, “entrusting the matter into the hands of Our Lord with contrition and penance.”
He asked his people to be vigilant and take “utmost care in protecting our sacred spaces” and place the tabernacle into the church wall and keep its key safe.
“I visited the Desecrated church on Sunday afternoon and was there till evening praying and consoling the faithful who were disturbed and saddened by the act of sacrilege,” Sualsingh told Crux.
“Hope surpasses all trials. The parish priest Father Joseph Antony has lodged a police complaint, the First Information Report (FIR) is filed, no one is arrested so far. It looks from circumstances that it is an act of robbery. The stand and the donation box on which the statue is kept are broken but the statue is intact,” the bishop said.
Odisha, formerly known as Orissa, has a history of anti-Christian violence, and was the spot of an infamous attack on the impoverished Christian minority in August 2008.
RELATED: Two priests attacked in parish robbery in Odisha, India
The vast majority of the population of Odisha is Hindu – over 93 percent. The Catholic population is just 2.7 percent.
Antony told Crux it was raining very heavily when the church was desecrated, “with thunder and lightning, and there was no power.”
“These three persons broke into the CNI Church, located near the Holy Family Parish, and stole a Casio keyboard and the money collection box,” the priest said.
“From there, around 1:30 AM and 2:00 AM, the three persons came to our church, forced opened the main door and stole the large tabernacle, broke open the donation box placed in front of the statue of Mother Mary and took all the collected money. The police continue to investigate,” he said.
