The Santa Monica Police Department is seeking suspects following a break-in at St. Monica Church on Thursday night that resulted in $150,000 worth of audio and video equipment stolen and an attempted desecration of the church’s tabernacle.
A tabernacle is one of the most sacred objects in a Catholic church, according to Merrick Siebenaler, St. Monica’s director of development and communications.
“As Catholics, we believe in the full presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament,” Siebenaler said. “So, we reserve the Eucharist, which is Jesus’ body, in that tabernacle. It’s probably the most sacred spot in any Catholic worship space — more so than the altar, more so than any other places.
“Imagine someone breaking into the tomb of Jesus — that’s what that feeling is,” Siebenaler said.
While photos of the tabernacle show clear attempts to pry it open, the door held.
“We have to pray and forgive those who trespass against us,” Monsignor Lloyd Torgerson, pastor of St. Monica, said on Friday. Torgerson was quoting from the Lord’s Prayer, commonly called the Our Father, one of the bedrock prayers in Catholicism and other branches of Christianity. The prayer asks that God forgive us as we forgive others.
“We say that every day, and we have to believe what we say,” Torgerson said….
The above comes from a March 26 story in the Santa Monica Daily Press.
I forgive St. Monica’s for the lousy and inappropriate rock music they play at their masses. Wait, maybe I don’t.
$150,000 worth of audio and video equipment? Were they getting ready for an Oscars broadcast?
Instead of audio and video equipment, they should have invested in an alarm and camera system to protect the church.
Good time to move the tabernacle from its side niche with the weird seasonal colored lighting back to front and center position in the sanctuary. And while they’re at it, move the choir and all the musicians back into the Choir Loft, where they were always intended to be.
By obnoxiously putting the rock band in the place where the tabernacle used to be, the parish is showing what it values most, and it isn’t the Eucharist.
If you click on the link to read more from this article, you get this ridiculous statement by the pastor:
In a message to the St. Monica community released by the church on Friday, Torgerson said the tabernacle was not desecrated thanks to Divine intercession. “They attempted to breach the tabernacle and it was damaged, but it held strong and protected the Blessed Sacrament,” Torgerson said. “What an inspiring demonstration of the power of the Eucharist!”
Um, the pastor doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and that’s putting it kindly. He’s full of it. And I don’t mean full of the Eucharist.
What leads priests to say such dumb things?
So if I put the Eucharist in my house, then my house will be protected from a break-in? That’s the power of the Eucharist? Pure superstition. Saint Thomas Aquinas would not approve.
Well, that tabernacle did its job!
Offering forgiveness before someone asks for forgiveness is a gross misunderstanding of what the Gospel is.
“forgiveness”: You seem just way too sure about your own opinion on forgiveness when it may very well be you who have misunderstood. What did Our Lord say as he hung upon the Cross? “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Consider that: God granting forgiveness even before the people who nailed Him to the Cross asked for forgiveness.
Consider Luke 17:3, “Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.”
Our Lord taught a conditional: IF your brother repents, forgive him.
God himself doesn’t always forgive the unrepentant, otherwise hell wouldn’t exist; hell is the eternal destiny of those who die in a state of unrepented mortal sin. Humans cannot be held to a standard that God doesn’t hold himself to.
Ha-ha! Somebody got jon! He can’t argue with Jesus’ words in the Gospel.
Dear “can’t argue” remember that Our Lord’s words which I quoted above are also words “in the Gospel” which are found in Luke 23:34 where He forgives even before repentance. Catholic theology is not an “either/or” system but a “both/and.” There are indeed situations when a person should wait for an expression of contriteness before forgiveness is given, making “IF’s” comments above valid (in certain situations). However, there are other situations when things are not cut-and-dry, when contriteness might not be forthcoming because of (among other things) ignorance in the other person. What are you going to do then? Then you may have to follow Our Lord’s example: you forgive because “they don’t seem to know what they have done.” And that situation may indeed be at work in this case. It is very unlikely that those who violated the sacred grounds of the Church would formally ask for forgiveness from the Catholic community there (it’d be astonishing and short of a miracle if they do). Therefore the Catholic faithful there is left to follow Our Lord’s example: asking that those hoodlums be forgiven for they know not what they have done. I hope that clears it up for you, “can’t argue.” But one must be perplexed why you seem almost “jubilant” over a refutation of my earlier comment. The Germans call this behavior “schadenfreude” which says something psychological about the person. So, do note that, “can’t argue.”
This is one of the renegade parishes in Los Angeles.
Oh? So define for us what a “renegade” parish is.
Rebellious? Maybe?
Torgerson has been pastor there for over 35 years, which is unheard of. He’s well past retirement age. Who does he have pictures of?