The lone policeman didn’t seem to know much about what had happened. Or if he did, he wasn’t telling me.
Stationed outside the wrought-iron fence at St Patrick’s Catholic Church in Masterton on a bright, already warm Saturday morning, he would only confirm that the broken glass in one of the church’s windows had been caused by someone throwing a firebomb through it.
Appalled by the thought, we both stared at the hole in the old church where no hole should be.
St Patrick’s was one of seven buildings targeted by firebombs in Masterton last weekend, six of them churches and one a funeral home chapel. Someone with a grudge or a mental illness or an obsession with fire lighting went on an early-morning spree which has, unsurprisingly, disturbed, saddened and outraged our small community.
Fortunately, the exterior of St Patrick’s didn’t appear too badly damaged. Apparently, the cop who was first on the scene acted quickly with a church fire hose before Fire and Emergency arrived.
However, it was impossible for me to tell from the street what damage had been done inside, even with the church’s doors thrown open to let the smoke out of the old wooden structure.
There was no possibility of me going in for a look, either. This beautiful 19th-century church was a crime scene surrounded by “police emergency” tape and the young constable was there to keep gawkers like me away.
It was obviously so senseless. But it wasn’t just that. Like another victim, the Anglican Church of the Epiphany ‒ a 114-year-old building with a delightful lychgate – St Patrick’s is one of the finest old public buildings in a town with few enough of them.
For my sins, I am an atheist. But even an old pagan like me can see the grace of God in a building like St Patrick’s. And it isn’t just its exterior that pleases the eye and makes it special. The Wairarapa Daily Times reported the day after St Patrick’s opened its doors on May 4, 1879, that the church’s interior “not only makes it one of the handsomest, but also one of the most complete [churches] in the colony”.
The unnamed Daily Times writer waxes poetical in their report, noting, “Whether it is the mellow light from the stained windows in the nave, or the mullioned window in the sanctuary; or the contrast between the light polished wood of which the handsome and comfortable seats are constructed, and the rich dark stained woodwork of the altar and font … the general effect of the interior is perfect.
“Everything, down to the smallest minutiae, harmonises, and he who is not stirred by the beauty of the scene is incapable of appreciating form and colour.”
Nearly 150 years later, I stood in the street looking at the hole in the window and wondered, as the whole town has since, why someone had wanted to burn such beauty to the ground.
At press time, police had issued an arrest warrant for a man who, in a ranting online video, appeared to claim responsibility for the attacks. Or irresponsibility. Dressed in an ankle-length, dazzlingly white, collarless smock with a gold belt and sash, he walks along a beach looking like an Old Testament prophet and quotes from Revelation 1:20 before going on to rail against religion and just about everything else.
In the end, it doesn’t matter who is behind these pathetic and inept attacks on our town, or why, as long as they are caught, put through the courts and given the help they need.
What really matters is that this was not just an attack on churches, it was an attack on the whole Masterton community. The town has, as you would hope, responded with offers of help as well as with shock, even if the greatest blow to us all is knowing the person, or people, responsible likely came from among us.
