Lord, when did we see You?
November 18, 2020
Feast of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe (A)
November 18, 2020
GUYANA
Catholic News contributor Felix Edinborough has since spoken to Bishop Francis Alleyne OSB after he was assaulted and robbed while presiding over Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Brickdam, Georgetown, Saturday, November 7. Edinborough spoke to the bishop the day after the incident which unfolded on Facebook live.
Bishop Alleyne and Rev Francis Xavier Savarimuthu continued the Mass but sources said they were shaken by the incident.
According to Edinborough, Bishop Francis relayed that he did not resist the assailant because he was armed with a knife.
Rev Francis who was assisting at the Mass and the young men present were “petrified”. “But there was a woman and her little nephew present. She sent home with a message for her husband. The husband called the police, and husband and child joined the police in searching for the assailant in the vicinity of Stabroek Market.”
He continued, “The child spotted the assailant (he was wearing the episcopal ring). Police apprehended [the] assailant who threw the ring into a gutter. The little boy fished it out.”
According to a news report by demerarawaves.com, the man entered the church and walked up to Bishop Alleyne, grabbed the Bishop’s right hand, and dragged off the ring before grabbing the Missal and the bishop’s pectoral cross. All the items were recovered.
In his conversation with Edinborough, Bishop Alleyne said that police discovered that the assailant had “escaped” from the psychiatric ward of the General Hospital in Georgetown. Persons of “unsound mind” and the destitute are sometimes seen in and around the Cathedral, according to the local news source.
