Italy: Teenagers desecrated church, later apologize to avoid police charges

Case information
Incident date
Country
Italy
Place
Verona
Categories
  • Social Hostility / Intolerance
Attack Against
  • Morals
Perpetrator / Motive Indicators
  • Private
Hate Crime & Violent Incidents
  • Desecration
Religious Freedom / Discrimination
  • Other (text field)
Place of Incident
  • Church
Bias Indicators
  • Comments/Written Statements/Gestures/Graffiti
  • Lack of Other Motive
Reported to Police
  • No
Response of Local Authorities
  • Unknown
Symbolic image; not a photograph of the reported incident.Image credit: Joshua Eckstein on Unsplash

Four teenage girls were caught by the church's CCTV cameras while entering and desecrating the place. The sanctuary Porto di Legnago in Verona, Italy did not press any charges against the perpetrators. The camera caught them entering the church at around 1 p.m., they are seen tearing off the rosary beads from a statue and defacing a board near the entrance of the church. The parish priest, Don Moreno Roncoletta, used his Facebook page to invite the perpetrators to apologise to the church unless they wanted the video footage to be handed over to the police. After being shared more than 1,700 times the perpetrators came forward and apologised to the sanctuary. Father Moreno considers the case closed and is not pressing any charges.

Sources