Statues at Towson’s Immaculate Conception Parish and Overlea’s St. Michael the Archangel Parish were vandalized within two days of each other.
Sean Caine, director of communications for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, said that both cases were reported to Baltimore County police. The Immaculate Conception vandalism happened March 19, while the St. Michael incident occurred March 21.
Caine said that the cases do not appear to be related. No injuries were reported, and neither parish’s church building was damaged.
“This kind of vandalism is rare,” Caine said. “It’s even more rare when it happens so close in time to each other.”
At Immaculate Conception, the six-foot statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary that faces Bosley Avenue was knocked over. A hand from the statue was missing after the attack, and Caine said that a light that shines on the statue also appeared damaged.
The cement statue was donated by a parishioner in the 1980s and sits on the edge of the parish’s campus. Caine called the statue a “gift to the community.”
At St. Michael the Archangel, the head of a smaller statue of St. Francis, in a side garden on the parish’s campus, was knocked off.
“Our interest is less in who did it,” Caine said of the two cases of vandalism, “and more about repairing them.”