Sacred places under attack

MODESTO, Calif. — A few weeks ago, a Modesto, Calif., man shot and killed a Mormon bishop in Visalia, Calif. A day earlier, an intruder broke into St. Stanislaus Catholic Church, smashed four statues of Mary and overturned an organ.

"This level of violence is very disturbing. ... Churches are supposed to be sanctuaries," said Roy Wasden, president of the LDS Church's Modesto stake.

The idea of churches as sanctuary is an ancient one. The Mosaic law let fugitives take refuge at the altar of God. The Jewish temple was a holy place where people could come to have priests atone for their sins.

England's law recognized the right of sanctuary — churches as the place people could be safe from arrest — from the fourth to 17th centuries. In medieval Europe, churches even gave sanctuary to convicted criminals.

In this country, although no U.S. laws support shielding people from the government, churches have provided sanctuary for escaped slaves, for Vietnam draft dodgers and for Central American immigrants in the 1980s fleeing brutal conditions and civil wars.

There's also the issue of holiness. In the Old Testament, if you didn't approach God's house or his holy items such as the Ark of the Covenant with reverence, God often would take your life. The idea of the sacred has been attached to houses of worship through the centuries. To defile churches or special elements in them is considered sacrilegious.

But that sense of holiness and sanctuary seems to have dissolved in recent years amid a series of high-profile fatalities:

A schizophrenic man walked into an Illinois church in 2009 with 30 rounds of ammunition and shot the pastor through his heart as he was preaching.

That same year, a Kansas abortion doctor serving as an usher at his church was killed by a man who believed he was saving the lives of children.

In 2008, an unemployed gunman opened fire with 76 shotgun shells, killing two adults and wounding seven in a Tennessee church while 25 children were staging a play.

In 2006, a milk truck driver entered an Amish schoolhouse, killing five girls and seriously wounding another five.

There also have been arson and vandalism attacks.

Locally, Congregation Beth Shalom in Modesto was hit in March 2009 by two vandals who spray-painted swastikas and derogatory ethnic slurs on the building.