BENSONHURST — Victoria Cirillo has been a parishioner of St. Dominic Church in Bensonhurst for most of her life, so when a hammer-wielding vandal destroyed two of the church’s statues 11 months ago, “it was devastating.”
Cirillo’s sadness turned into joy on May 4, when Father Michael Lynch, pastor of St. Athanasius-St. Dominic Parish, dedicated and blessed two new statues that the church had built to replace the damaged ones.
The statues, depicting St. John XXIII and St. Teresa of Calcutta (also known as Mother Teresa), once again stand in small raised gardens on the sidewalk near the church’s entrance after an absence of nearly a year.
Cirillo said she is “happy” they are back because they’re an important part of the parish, and because they’re a “part of [their] faith.”
“We are grateful to be able to dedicate these statues today,” said Father Lynch, who blessed the statues with holy water and invited parishioners to place flowers in buckets at the foot of each.
The satisfaction parishioners expressed at the dedication was a far cry from last year, following the incident in which a vandal used a hammer to smash the faces of the statues of St. John XXIII and St. Teresa of Calcutta.
Not only were the faces smashed during the June 10 incident, but St. John XXIII’s right hand was damaged, and the glass door at the church’s front entrance was broken.
A short time after, the NYPD arrested a suspect, Randy Maldonado Avila, 30, and charged him with criminal mischief.
According to Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez’s office, the case against Avila was still pending as of May 5. “A psychiatrist team found him unfit to proceed and he is being hospitalized until such time that he is found fit,” Oren Yaniv, a spokesman for Gonzalez, told The Tablet.
After it was decided that the fiberglass statues were damaged beyond repair, the church organized a campaign to raise funds to have the new statues built, each of which cost approximately $10,000, according to Deacon Anthony Mammoliti. Parishioners stepped forward to make donations.
RELATED: Statues and Doors of a Bensonhurst Catholic Church Badly Damaged in a Vandal’s Attack
The fundraising effort got a boost when members of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) Local 1814 in Brooklyn, with which the church has a longstanding relationship, donated money toward the project, Deacon Mammoliti explained.
The dedication, which took place after the 9 a.m. Mass drew a large crowd of parishioners, many of whom expressed relief to see the statues of the two Catholic icons gracing the sidewalk again.
“They were beautiful before, and they are very beautiful now,” said Cecilia Cataldo, who came to the Mass with her husband, Salvatore. “We are glad that they’ve been restored, just as our faith sometimes gets broken and restored.”
Salvatore recalled that he and his wife would often stop by St. John XXIII and St. Teresa of Calcutta to say a prayer before going into church, and they are pleased they can do it again.
“There was nothing there for a year, and now there is,” he said. “It’s nice.”
The two statues are particularly meaningful to the St. Dominic Church community, Deacon Mammoliti noted.
“When the statues were damaged … everyone’s heart sank a little bit because not only do they render beauty to the exterior of our church,” he said, “but it also symbolizes who we are as a faith community.”
“We look up to St. Teresa of Calcutta because our homeless outreach ministry is devoted to the work that she did — caring for the people on the periphery of society — and we take that to heart here at St. Dominic’s,” he added.
St. John XXIII is admired because he was the architect of Vatican II, which “brought new life into the Church,” Deacon Mammoliti said.
In his dedication, Father Lynch prayed that the lives of the two saints would serve as an inspiration to others.
“As we follow in the footsteps of the Lord,” Father Lynch said, “keeping before us the example of St. Mother Teresa and St. Pope John XXIII, grow to a maturity measured not by nature, but by the fullness of Christ.”
