BURGLARS broke into a church and a restaurant in the same Co Tyrone town at the weekend, stealing cash registers and causing damage to both buildings in the process sometime between late Saturday and early Sunday.
Appealing for information about the crimes a PSNI statement pointed out that all crime is unacceptable but commented that "a burglary in a place of worship is particularly sickening and abhorrent".
Most people would agree with that point of view, perhaps because a church belongs to and is a part of a wider wider community. All of the people who attend St Teresa's Church will feel a sense of violation about this incident.
And this is not the first time church property has been targetted in this way. In February 2017 there was an attempted burglary at the parochial house as Vigil Mass was being celebrated in St Teresa's.
In the weekend incident a stained-glass window was smashed by the burglars, presumably to gain entry. The police statement said that blood found at the scene indicated that one of the criminals had injured themselves on the broken glass. Hopefully this may lead to arrests.
While these two burglaries are hardly the most elaborate or even serious of crimes that we all-too-regularly carry reports on, they do illustrate the harm that such incidents can cause to the sense of safety of residents. They are also an example of how the selfish actions of a few individuals can affect the wider community.
Hopefully they will be apprehended and brought before the courts soon.
