NEW JERSEY
Patch
By Russ Crespolini
March 8, 2013
For the second time in as many years a memorial at St. Joseph’s Church in Mendham Borough that was dedicated to the victims of child sexual abuse was defaced, Mendham Borough Police said.
According to Ptl. Chris Gobbi, an employee of Saint Joseph’s Church and School discovered vandalism to a monument on the west side of the church property. The monument consisted of a black granite millstone, two statues of children, and two plaques.
The monument was designed and built as a memorial to the victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and was dedicated in 2004 at St. Joseph’s where James T. Hanley, a pastor who has been defrocked, admitted to molesting children decades ago.
The damage from Thursday’s incident appeared to be limited to the two statues of a male and female child on either side of the millstone, Gobbi said. The male statue sustained cracks and chipping of the finish to the base, the legs and a ball behind the feet, the female child statue had been broken off at the ankles and sustained major damage where it struck the ground, including the loss of an arm, Gobbi said.
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