Tuesday, June 23, 2009

No Good Deed ...

A few days ago, we mentioned Malcolm Morgan and City Church, Belfast. We were quite pleased by their efforts to protect five "Romanian" families who had been harassed by thugs. We were less pleased by the press, which failed to provide much information about the church, or to identify the families as Roma. (It's a bit like saying that people painted "symbols" on the home of some Polish immigrants, and neglecting to mention that the immigrants were Jews and the symbols were swastikas. Or that "some" Irishmen attacked "some others" in Belfast, without mentioning that some were Protestants and some were Roman Catholics.)

Anyway, the church was vandalized this week:

"I arrived this morning to find windows smashed at the front of our church and our main doorway smashed as well," [Morgan] said.

"Stones were lying scattered on the floor inside and outside, and ... broken glass was everywhere.

"It would be easy to conclude it was carried out by someone who didn't like our response to the Romanians, but that is only guesswork."

He said the church had been "thrilled that we were able to respond to the Romanian situation ... these broken windows wouldn't have stopped us anyway".

The Guardian article, linked above, is still a bit vague on the name of the church or ethnicity of the families. That doesn't keep it from making one's blood boil.

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