Vandal beheads Blessed Virgin Mary statue at New York church

A masked vandal wielding a hammer knocked a statue of the Virgin Mary from its pedestal and broke off its head at a Catholic church in Long Island City, New York, according to surveillance footage.

According to the New York Daily News, the attack occurred shortly before 2 a.m. on Aug. 1 in the courtyard of St. Rita Roman Catholic Church in Queens. 

The footage, released by the Diocese of Brooklyn and shared online by local outlets, shows the man jumping over a fence, approaching the statue, and removing a hammer from his pants pocket. He struck the statue once, knocking it from its pedestal and causing its head to break off. He then placed the hammer back in his pocket, climbed over the fence, and fled.

“We are tired of this. I am so upset I don’t know what to say,” Father Felix Sanchez, St. Rita’s pastor, told The Tablet. “People are a little bit scared because of the attacks.”

Diocese spokesman John Quaglione told 1010 WINS, a local news station, that attacks on religious institutions affect New Yorkers of all faiths.

“This is a problem for the Catholic Church,” Quaglione said. “This is a problem for people of the Jewish faith, people of the Muslim faith.”

The New York Police Department Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the attack, according to the Tablet. 

The incident marks the fourth time vandals have damaged St. Rita’s property since 2024. In March, someone spray-painted a statue of Saint Francis of Assisi at the church and wrote the word “PAGAN” on the sidewalk in front of the statue, Zeale News previously reported. According to the Tablet, which cited Fr. Sanchez, a man entered the church in March and punched a statue of Saint Jude while parishioners were serving coffee. In February 2024, a vandal reportedly threw a construction cone, smashing a 60-year-old stained-glass window.