Trinity Heights vandalized

By KATIE LEFEBVRE, Globe staff reporter
March 31, 2005

Trinity Heights Queen of Peace in Sioux City was vandalized and volunteers are still cleaning up the graffiti. The vandalism occurred some time between 5 p.m. on March 23 and early morning on March 24, Holy Thursday.

Six teenage boys have been arrested for the vandalism - two are still being held by the law and four were turned over to their parents and on house arrest. The trial dates have not be set yet.

"They came up and pleaded with me. They really feel bad about it. At least they act like they do," said Duane Sudbeck, the building and grounds supervisor at Trinity Heights, who attended the initial hearing on March 28. "This is serious. They didn't just take one thing."

He added that he asked them why they did it and they replied, "I don't know."

The vandalism included the four new statues in the Way of the Saints, the 33-foot Sacred Heart of Jesus statue, the two statues at the Our Lady of Lourdes Shrine and the Knock Shrine as well as several benches, sidewalks and plaques. Ten of 12 statues were damaged including Mother Theresa, St. Joseph and Padre Pio.

The teenagers also threw three dozen eggs between the Jesus statue and the Mother Theresa statue. They painted the toe nails of the Christ statue red as well.

According to Judy Verschoor, a Queen of Peace employee, the words that were written on the various statues and sidewalks were "filthy, very evil and anti-Catholic. It was against the pope, the Blessed Mother, Christ and the saints. We are just sick about it."

"What are we going to do now? The paint is on concrete, on marble," said Sudbeck. "We are almost trying to figure out what to do with an impossible situation."

The city of South Sioux City sent over their soda blaster, a graffiti removing machine, and a team of men to work the machine. The machine is an air-driven cleaning system that blasts either ground-up corn husks, sodium bicarbonate or potassium sulfate out of a hose and onto most surfaces removing paint without causing damage.

"They got it cleaned up pretty good," said Sudbeck. "This soda blaster that they are using is better than I ever thought."

Several of the Trinity Heights volunteers have also been helping in the clean-up efforts. As of March 29, the volunteers were continuing to work on cleaning up the grounds and getting things back to close to normal.

"I still hate to walk out there because all this stuff was so beautifully white and crystal clear," said Sudbeck. "It's just a disaster."

Sudbeck commented that the Mary statue got beat up with a hammer one time but other than that, nothing like this has ever happened before.

"My worst thoughts are that we may not get it back to where it was before," said Sudbeck. "We've got to replace a couple of the statues unless a miracle happens."