2019
* plus tax and season pass.
COURIER L 6 IFE, MARCH 1–7, 2019 PS
Cops: Sneak swiped,
desecrated P’Slope
church’s statue
OFF LIMITS: Priests are not displaying the
Our Lady of Cisne statue while cops investigate
the recent theft. Photo by Colin Mixson
S p r i n g i s a l m o st H e r e !
Maintain your Roof for spring SUPER ROOFER
THE TRUSTED NAME IN ROOFING
SINCE 1979
Top Quality Workmanship
Residential & Commercial
GUTTER
CLEANING
COMPLETE
FLASH & PAINT
SNOW & ICE
REMOVAL
718-833-3508
513 72ND ST., BROOKLYN, NY
CUCINA ITALIANA
140 7th718-788-6225
Hrs: Sun.-Thurs. 11am-11pm | Fri.-Sat. till Midnight
See our website: danonnarosas.com
Party Room available for all occasions
Seating for up to 100 people
RESERVE YOUR SPACE NOW!!
BY COLIN MIXSON
A blasphemous bandit stole and damaged
a beloved statue from inside a
Park Slope church, according to cops,
who said police are investigating the
incident as a hate crime.
The sacrilegious snake swiped the
statue of Our Lady of Cisne — a Catholic
Marian icon native to the Loja province
of Ecuador — from Ninth Street’s
St. Thomas Aquinas Church on Feb.
20, devastating parishioners who said
their daily prayers before the monument,
according to the house of worship’s
parish administrator.
“It’s a part of who they are, a lot of
them come every single morning to
pay homage to our lady and pray in
front of this statue,” said Fr. Willy Ndi.
“To come and not be able to do that,
something they’ve done for years and
years, it’s heartbreaking.”
The thief entered through the
church’s main entrance at 11:10 am,
and emerged with the three-foot-tall
statue just three minutes later, suggesting
the suspect knew his way
around the holy house near Fourth Avenue,
according to Ndi.
“He certainly knew the place and
he was quite comfortable, very calm,”
the priest said.
The vandal then crossed Fourth
Avenue, before tossing the shrine in
a garbage can near an entrance to the
Fourth Avenue-Ninth Street station,
breaking off the fi gurine’s hand that
held the baby Jesus, and insulting parishioners
and all local Catholics in
the process, according to Ndi.
“The statue of our mother being
placed in a garbage can, it’s insulting,”
he said. “It is really sad.”
Church leaders plan to repair or replace
the statue in due time, but will
let the investigation led by offi cers in
the Police Department’s Hate Crimes
Task Force run its course before making
any decisions, according to the
parish priest, who said clergy won’t
display the statue in the meantime.
Cops, who have yet to identify a
suspect, said the burglar was last seen
wearing a black jacket, blue jeans, and
white sneakers.
And the recent incident wasn’t
the fi rst time a vandal targeted the
church’s Our Lady of Cisne statue —
another goon nabbed, dumped, and
damaged the shrine weeks earlier, on
Jan. 26, Ndi said.
St. Thomas Aquinas leaders did not
report that theft, however, only contacting
police after the second incident,
according to the priest, who said
he could not provide more detail about
the earlier theft because he transferred
to the Park Slope church from a
Cobble Hill parish on Feb. 1.
Anyone with information in regard
to this incident is asked to call
the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers hotline at
(800) 577-8477.
/danonnarosas.com