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The Catholic Action League called for a hate crimes investigation into a suspect charged with ripping the arms off a historic crucifix at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston.
Michael Patzelt, a 37-year-old Attleboro man with a lengthy rap sheet, was charged Wednesday in Boston Municipal Court with assault and malicious destruction of property over the vandalized 150-year-old crucifix.
Video taken by a witness showed a man swinging from the concrete statue of the crucified Jesus outside the cathedral.
“Officers received a call for a suspicious person after the suspect had knocked off a female [victim’s] headwear,” the Boston Police Department said in a statement. “The suspect then proceeded to climb up the cross where he began to swing and hang from it, breaking off several parts of the cross. The suspect broke both the [statue’s] arms prior to officers responding and placed him under arrest.”
The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts called for the Suffolk County District Attorney to open a hate crimes investigation, calling the incident “a brazen attack on the center of Catholicism in New England, committed by a criminal with a 17 page rap sheet, in front of multiple witnesses.”
Tashana Watson said she saw a man following another woman Tuesday near the cathedral before approaching her and her 11-year-old son.
“I pushed him like four times to get him away, and then he grabbed my hair and my hat and threw it,” she told ABC 5 in Boston. “Then he tried to have a conversation, something to the effect of, ’Just shoot me.’ I was just trying to get safe. That’s my thoughts: get me and my son safe.”
NEW DETAILS: Boston police ID man arrested in act of vandalism that left crucifix at cathedral with broken arms https://t.co/O1gttiWJZF pic.twitter.com/6GNcNGraSH
— Boston 25 News (@boston25) October 25, 2023
The suspect was described in court as being homeless and unemployed. He is due back in court on Nov. 30.
“The level of venom and destructiveness displayed by this individual is difficult to comprehend,” Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden said in a statement to NBC 10. “We live in a society where citizens are free to practice any religion they choose, and equally free to practice no religion at all. But they are not free to desecrate symbols held precious by the many faiths within our society.”
Attacks on Catholic churches surged during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and riots, and then again in 2021 after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The CatholicVote tracker lists 368 attacks on Catholic churches since May 2020, including arson, smashed windows, anti-Catholic graffiti, and destroyed statues. The vast majority have gone unsolved.
In Massachusetts, there have been 44 incidents of vandalism against Catholic churches, schools, cemeteries and statues since 2019, and four in 2023, said the Catholic Action League.
“Unlike the spate of unsolved church vandalisms in Boston during 2020 and 2021, in this case, a perpetrator has been identified, arrested and arraigned,” said league executive director C.J. Doyle.
He urged the Archdiocese of Boston to “resist its reflexive compulsion to dismiss the offender as a poor soul in need of mental health therapy. After more than 50 unpunished attacks on Catholic churches in the state in the last decade, it is time for someone to go to jail for vandalizing a Catholic church in Boston.”
Damage to the crucifix was estimated at $20,000. Work crews were able Wednesday to repair and reattach the arms on the Jesus statue.
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