Renowned Canadian sculptor Timothy Schmalz has been tasked with recreating the clay statues decapitated last May at Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto in Sudbury, Ont.

It’s an incident that caused some despair among St. Patrick’s parishioners, but they would soon receive some solace with the help of local Knights of Columbus.

Statues typically honour those who have done great deeds. They are built so we do not forget our past. To forget the past is to lose hope for a better future. Without a memory of the past, our only vision of reality is that of the present. We are stuck in the ideology of today, reduced to a one-dimensional world. Memory opens horizons.

Toronto police have released an image of a man sought for decapitating a statue of the Virgin Mary outside a church in the city’s west end.

Canadians enjoy religious freedom unlike many in other parts of the world, so for Jeffrey Susilo the thought that recent church vandalism could be evidence that those freedoms might be under attack is disheartening.  

The reports were scattered at first, isolated news stories throughout the year of a statue toppled here, another spray-painted with graffiti there. This summer they have come more frequently — senseless acts of anti-Church vandalism that have grown bolder and more destructive.

Constant vigilance will be required from staff and parishioners at churches across Canada to safeguard against the rising tide of vandalism inflicted upon religious statues. 

MIAMI -- The beheading of a statue of Christ at a Catholic church in the Miami Archdiocese has saddened the parish community of Good Shepherd Church and prompted Miami Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski to call on law enforcement to investigate the incident as a hate crime.

The Calgary Police Service has launched an investigation into the vandalizing of a bronze Jesus statue by the front doors of a city parish. 

York Regional Police are investigating an act of vandalism to statues outside of St. Patrick’s Parish in Markham, Ont.

Boston police are investigating an arson attack on a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary Saturday night, the second attack in the U.S. on a statue of the Virgin Mary in two days, and during the same weekend in which two Catholic church fires are being investigated for arson.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan offers up a much-needed reminder that a dangerous effect of toppling statues is forgetting we are all fallen human beings.