Borough Pres, Religious Leaders Pay For Destroyed Church Statues

WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN -- Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and a group of community leaders will pay to fix a pair of angel statues that were destroyed by a vandal this week after he peed on the steps of a Metropolitan Avenue church. The donations will serve as a reminder that the borough, and the city, will not tolerate acts of hate, the group said.

"This is our way of saying that the level of anti-Catholicism, anti-religion and really anti-human experience is not something we tolerate in the borough of Brooklyn and in the city of New York," Adams said at a press conference Tuesday. "Although (the church) was damaged, it did not damage our desire and commitment to heal this city."

The vandal, captured on video, relieved himself just before 4 a.m. Sunday on the steps of Our Lady of Consolation Roman Catholic Church before pushing over the two statues, which broke from the fall. The NYPD are still looking for the suspect.

Adams said the incident, which is being investigated as a hate crime, is one of six times the church has been vandalized in the last eight years, including another time the statues were broken two years ago.

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He and the group of Jewish, Catholic and Muslim leaders who joined him Tuesday added that the incident reflects an increase in the number of hate crimes across the city.

"It's our job as a community to understand that hate is on the rise," said Evan R. Bernsetein, regional director of the New York/New Jersey Anti-Defamation League. "Whether it's their church, their mosque, their synagogue...we are seeing the normalization of hate in our society and it cannot continue."

Adams, who will contribute $500 of his own money to fix the statues, said that when one religion is attacked it should be the responsibility of other faiths to come together and help.

The Anti-Defamation League New York/New Jersey, the Pakistani American Youth Society, The Bridge Multicultural and Advocacy Project and Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, all pledged to donate to the cause.

A representative from the church's diocese, Monsignor Kieran Harrington, said he was grateful for the donations, but also asked that the leaders contribute to causes such as homelessness or addiction epidemics in the city. The man who vandalized the church was "clearly intoxicated," he said.

"We can help fix the statue, but it's a statue," Harrington said. "There are a lot of problems in this city."

Photo provided by NYPD.