“(The incident occurred) at some point between 4:30 Monday afternoon and 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday,” said Fr. Stephen Vileo, pastor of St. Michael’s. “It appears to have extinguished itself.”
Fr. Vileo said someone “deliberately set fire to the altar cloth, and the altar cloth is partly made of polyester so when the burning part fell onto the floor it scorched the floorboards.”
He said a portion of the heavy oak altar’s front was burned black — “it charred it” — amounting to about a quarter of an inch burned deep.
“We were able to sand off the burned stuff,” said Fr. Vileo, adding he was thankful it wasn’t any worse. “We’ll take the stain and varnish off of the whole altar, and re-stain and re-varnish it. Insurance will take care of replacing the floorboards that were scorched.”
Fr. Vileo told The Michigan Catholic he was on retreat and didn’t learn the news until his way home, when his pastoral associate sent him a text message.
“I contacted the archdiocese’s Office of Worship, and they suggested that we not celebrate any sacramental acts until a Mass of Reparation (was) held,” Fr. Vileo said.
Fr. Vileo said the parish has a temporary altar in place, where Bishop Reiss celebrated the Mass.
He said the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) took information about the incident, but “they don’t have any more information as to who did it,” and the Monroe fire department “told me as much as they know.”
“A motivation escapes me as to why they would have done just this,” said Fr. Vileo, saying the parish typically kept the church unlocked during normal hours. “There was lots of linen in the sanctuary that wasn’t touched, nobody tried to break into the tabernacle, nothing was stolen.”
Because there are no lit candles close to the altar except during Mass, Fr. Vileo said the evidence points to an intentional blaze.
“It just looked like a deliberate act of meanness,” he said.
“We feel violated, I feel violated personally, but … Bishop Reiss was very good about preaching the need for forgiving the person who perpetrated the arson. That’s part of the Mass of Reparation,” Fr. Vileo said.
For now, the church is now being locked except for Mass or confessions, he said, though the community is saddened by it.
Fr. Vileo is grateful repairs will not be a major cost to the parish, though the altar linen is “burned beyond recognition.” He said the linen will be saved for the parish archives and replaced with a new one, which will be modified for the altar by the people of the parish.
He said he was touched by the outpouring of community support since the incident.
“When I was greeting people (after Mass July 26) the pastor of the Methodist parish down the street came by,” he said. “She had read about it in the Monroe Evening News, and learned that (the damaged altar) was oak. She came and offered an extra oak altar that they don’t use currently; she had envisioned this would take months of repair.”
Fr. Vileo told her it would only take about two weeks to repair, but said the gesture wasn’t unnoticed.
“I told the people of St. Michael’s about it, and to say a special prayer for our Methodist brothers and sisters,” he said.
Healing the hurt, purifying the desecrated
“When a church is desecrated, it’s a scandal to the community,” says Dan McAfee, worship director for the Archdiocese of Detroit. “But also a sin has been committed (by the attack on the church).”
McAfee said a penitential rite must take place before Mass can again be celebrated in the space. He explained that either a service or “Mass of Reparation” is held, which is similar to a regular Mass, “but the church is stripped of anything festive, and the liturgy usually starts outside the church.”
He said a sprinkling rite takes place, not just blessing the faithful, but also the altar and the walls, as an act of purification.
“After the liturgy of the word, the altar is dressed, candles are brought in, and the liturgy goes on as normal.” McAfee said that when possible, the Mass of Reparation is presided over by a local bishop to show that “the whole Church has been scandalized, and support the parish community.”
