South Side Church Arson May Have Been Hate Crime, by Bernie Tafoya, WBBM, DATA

South Side Church Arson May Have Been Hate Crime

By Bernie Tafoya
WBBM
February 6, 2009

http://www.wbbm780.com/Suspected-Church-Arson-May-Have-Been-Hate-Crime/3802525

CHICAGO (WBBM) - Investigators are trying to find the person or people who set fire to the outside of a Catholic church in the Bridgeport neighborhood overnight and duct taped a hate message on the church's front doors.

The base of a streetlight across from the church had also been set on fire.

All Saints-St. Anthony Church. Picture shows damage to stained glass window
Photo by Bernie Tafoya

Fr. John Parker, pastor of All Saints-St. Anthony Church on 28th Place and Wallace, says he was awakened by a burglar alarm shortly before 3:00 a.m. When Fr. Parker went downstairs and into the church, he found it smoky inside and the fire department already on the scene.

The priest says someone had also used red duct tape to spell out the message on the front doors of the church: "God is a lie. Rape happened here."

The fire which started on the alley side of the church "unfortunately …blew out one of our beautiful stained glass windows", says Parker.

The pastor says, "I just feel like we were violated".

Fr. Parker says he was talked to by investigators from the Chicago Police Department, the Chicago Fire Department and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

He says he doesn't know who would have wanted to vandalize the church. He says he had not received any threatening calls or letters. Parker calls it, "a big mystery" right now.

It appears the hate vandal(s) wanted to work under cover of darkness and tried to blow out the street light across the street from the church. It didn't work.

Even though a Yellow Pages telephone book and paper plates were set on fire inside the base of the street light, a city worker says the light did not go off because the wires at street level are disconnected, that the electricity for the light comes from overhead wires.