Update: Altar outside W. Warwick church defaced / Photos
5:19 PM Mon, Jul 06, 2009 | Permalink
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 Someone has drawn what West Warwick police detectives are describing as two pentagrams on an altar behind Sacred Heart Church in West Warwick. The larger of the two symbols, below, includes five sets of initials: S.N.W., L.A.M., C.E.T., C.M.C. and K.M.G. Photos courtesy of Sacred Heart parishioner Kara Russo  WEST WARWICK, R.I. -- The police are investigating the vandalism of a granite altar at a shrine located behind Sacred Heart Church, at 820 Providence St. Someone has drawn what detectives are describing as two pentagrams with what appears to be a black permanent marker, according to Detective Sgt. Scott Amaral. The larger of the two symbols includes five sets of initials: S.N.W., L.A.M., C.E.T., C.M.C. and K.M.G. The altar was not broken, Amaral said. The police were called to the Catholic church on Sunday morning. Father Richard Bucci told Patrol Officer Mark B. Longo that he was told on Friday about the vandalism. He said the last time he saw the outside altar undamaged was June 14, according to the police report. The priest told the police he thought the graffiti could be washed off the granite slab. Amaral said detectives would be sharing the initials with school resource officers who come into contact with many juveniles. Although pentagrams can be symbols for many things -- including devil worshipping and gangs -- Amaral said the department doesn't believe this vandalism was related to either. They haven't had gang problems in the area and no other gang-type symbols were found. Had this been devil worshipping or witchcraft, Amaral said, detectives would typically have found other kinds of evidence, like an animal sacrifice. Nothing else was found in the vicinity of this graffiti, Amaral said. "We think it was just kids in the area that did some malicious damage for no reason," Amaral said. The Providence Journal has been following this story as it develops. Our initial report was posted at 12:19 p.m. 
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Whoa, whoa, whoa... A pentagram that is upside down is not a pentagram. Just as a cross upside down is not a cross. Pentagrams are associated with paganism which is not devil worshipping. It's an Earth-based spirituality, nothing to do with Christianity or the flipside, devil worshipping.
Just as an upside down cross is associated with devil worshipping, so is an upside down pentagram. Yes, it does matter. Get it right!
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Up until medieval times the 5 points on a pentagram represented the 5 wounds of Christ on the cross. It was the symbol of Christ our Saviour.
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Whatever it is, it's wrong. While everyone has a right to their own "religion", it doesn't give them the right to deface property. It's sick, it's wrong, and it is punishable by God. People need to grow up. People wonder why the world is the way it is.
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Sad commentary on society. We have "just some kids".Forget -just-that belittles.We need to reach these young people and turn this behavior around.
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A pentagram has five points of a star, and is in a circle. How can you tell if it is upside down?
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Just a bunch of stupid adolescents. My friends and I used to blow up mailboxes with M-80s when we were kids. But we were smart enough not to leave our initials at the scene!
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As Witches do not sacrifice animals and are not related to satanism I dislike seeing this misinformation in a newspaper article. Every time there is a pentacle drawn everyone, the press especially jumps on this Witch and Satanist bit. It makes a simple case of vandalism much more exciting, when most likely it is kids doing this, and most likely local kids as vandalism is usually done by local people.
Never the less trashing a scared place is not acceptable regardless of reason. And I rather hope the kids are not only caught but made to pay for complete repainting of the area, or scrubbing off the damage, in fact it is even better if they are required to undo the damage themselves, even better while wearing a sign that they are the fools that did this. Make it as embarrassing as possible.
But again we actually don't know who and why just stupid thing was done and police should not get trapped into stereotype thinking if they are going to solve this crime.
A Marine Vietnam Veteran and Witchm
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Wow... a quasi-occult church vandalism incident where they DIDN'T immediately jump to conclusions and assume it was indicative of a widespread cult of baby-eating Satanists... I'm impressed.
Oh, and to clarify things, a pentagram with two points up is still a pentagram. This was even the way that classical scholars drew it: "The ancient Pythagorean pentagram was drawn with two points up and represented the doctrine of Pentemychos." (Wikipedia quote) It wasn't until the 1800s that magician Eliphas Levi tried to make the "one point up = good, two points up = evil" distinction.
And an inverted cross is still a cross-- Saint Peter was crucified upside down, which is why inverted crosses are sometimes used as a Catholic symbol.
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