A vandalized statue of St. Junipero Serra in San Francisco is seen June 19, 2020. (CNS photo/David Zandman via Reuters)
Denver Newsroom, Feb 22, 2021 / 07:01 pm (CNA).- Amid calls from California activists to drop vandalism charges against five assailants who destroyed a statue of St. Junipero Serra last year, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco warned that doing so would set a dangerous precedent.
“If a crime caught on videotape and witnessed by the police were not to have been prosecuted, it would have sent a profoundly disturbing message to the hundreds of thousands of people of faith in Marin County: churches, synagogues, mosques and temples are at the mercy of small mobs,” Cordileone said in a Feb. 19 statement.