In the night of Easter Sunday graffiti was spray painted in the churchyard of Santa Maria Assunta in Caorso. Drawings were made of satanic pentagrams with lots of red candles at both ends. A wafer was stuck on the door with the words "Animate vacuum" (empty soul).
As a consequence of a “foreign agents“ law that was signed by President Vladimir Putin last year, Russia caused headlines with its persistent attempt to crack down foreign funded non-governmental organisations such as Human Rights Watch and Transparency International. Now the latest reports state that the government has started targeting churches as well, e.g. fining a Catholic parish in Nowotscherkassk for 450,000 Rubles (11,200 Euros).
French Christians launched a petition for the resignation of Manuel Valls, French Minister of the Interior, and Bernard Boucault, Prefect of Police, and to sanction all police staff who committed abuses against the peaceful demonstrators at the Pro-Family-demonstration "Manif pour tous" in Paris on Sunday 24th of March. According to the organisers, the number of protesters had been greatly underestimated by the police, and in order to try to contain the actual 1,4 million the police employed unnecessary forceful measures.
Demonstrators for LGBT causes disrupted the Palm Sunday service on the 24th of March at the Cathedral in Metz, France. They were calling out slander, waving rainbow flags demanding that the bishop withdrew his support of the pro-family demonstration in Paris. The protesters were members of CNT and individuals.
On Saturday, March the 23rd, around 6.30 pm, an Iranian citizen aged 28, was arrested and taken into custody. He had broken into the Saint-Jean Cathedral of Lyon and seriously damaged the astronomical clock with an iron bar.
The church of Saint-Similien Nantes was vandalised on the night of the 23rd of March. Someone hid in the confessional on Friday night and then desecrated the stoup and vandalised the organ. An ermine chasuble, the organ bench and the light of the tabernacle were stolen.
During the night of March 22nd more than 20 graves were desecrated in the Elne-Cemetery in Pyrenees-Orientales. This happened before in 2008 when 248 graves were vandalised, almost all of them Christian tombs.
A Christian foundation for working with youth surprisingly lost its license to serve coffee and soda on the grounds that the youth centre was a gastronomical enterprise running on deficit and other permits would be necessary for non-profit activities. This was perceived as a governmental anti-Christian repression and is now debated in court.
Two youth entered the Church of St. Timothy in Termoli. One pretended to pray and when they were left alone made profane and sacrilegious gestures before stealing wafers and other sacred objects from the tabernacle. The theft was carried out on March 21 which corresponds to the satanic calendar as the "Second night of Tregenda”.
Another Catholic bookshop (“Notre-Dame-de-France”) was trashed on the 15th of March in Paris. The windows were broken and books thrown on the floor. There have been 26 reports of similar incidents over the past year.
Male pro-abortion protesters physically attacked several pro-life women, pushing and kicking them, during a rally on March 10th in Warsaw. The pro-lifers were part of the organisation Fundacja Pro and were carrying a controversial banner of a woman who died during an abortion.
The window of a Catholic bookshop, Our Lady of France (former "Bookstore Petit Pont ") was smashed.
On March 11th at around 7pm, the cantonal police were called to the scene at Saint-Nicolas in Fribourg, as an employee restrained two individuals who tried to hang a banner in the cathedral. They had also poured gasoline into the stoup to set it on fire.
Unknown perpetrator(s) damaged two graves and opened the coffins. The damage was detected by a member of the family of one of the deceased. At an old concrete tomb of an unknown owner, the tombstone was moved and the coffin was opened, and there was another case involving the desecration of an earthen grave. Some of the earth that had covered the coffin, which was apparently opened, had caved in. Around the grave were scattered bones. The incident was recorded by the police who performed an investigation.
Vandals entered the St. Michael's Parish Centre in Lecce and set fire to a holy book that was on the lectern. Fortunately the fire was put out before more damage was done.
Due to the Pope's resignation, in a caricature on its title page, the German magazine, Titanic, implied Pope Emeritus Benedict and his secretary, Archbishop Gänswein to be engaging in homosexual sex, uttering "Finally - sex!". This hurts religious feelings of the faithful, defames both and deepens a negative stereotype against church hierarchy.
The French Magazine Charlie Hebdo comments on the election of the new Catholic Pontiff with a caricature on its title page showing the cardinals having group sex and calling their sexual climax the descendence of the Holy Spirit. The faithful perceive this as hurtful and intolerant to their religious convictions.
On the occasion of the resignation of pope Benedict XVI and the conclave in which a new pope ought to be elected, the French magazine, Charlie Hebdo, featured a caricature on its front cover which shows the cardinals engaging in group sex. The words suggest that it is their sexual pleasure which the cardinals mockingly call the Holy Spirit.
Unidentified criminals burglarised and vandalised the Catholic church St. Josef in Oberhausem, North Rhine Westphalia. The act included desecration of the tabernacle, the altar and a relic. Several precious stones were taken and the registry was left in disarray.
The church of St. Joseph’s in Oberhausen, Germany was broken into by a burglar who after a failed attempt to enter through a window broke the door to the sacristy. He smashed an old alter relic when trying to open the next door into the church. The police were called and came with their tracking dogs but they lost the trail. All the cabinets in the church were broken and the contents dumped on the ground. Microphone and sound cables were torn out and on his way out the burglar stole gems.