Mosque Donates Thousands To Catholic Church In Canada That Was Vandalised

By R. Siva Kumar - 30 Jun '15 00:08AM

One mosque donated thousands of dollars to a Catholic church in Mississauga, Canada. The church needed to be cleaned up after it was vandalised, according to rt.

Hamid Slimi, imam of the Sayeda Khadija Centre in Mississauga, visited St. Catherine of Siena Roman Catholic Church. Its Father, Camillo Lando, showed a few of the vandalized atrocities that had been caught on the security video, which shocked the Imam.

"It was a very bad scene. The guy who did it ripped pages out of the Bible. He broke the altar. He threw the cross. When I saw this, I thought it was pure injustice. It was just wrong," Slimi told the Star media outlet.

St. Catherine of Siena Church was desecrated last April and May. The graffiti covering the walls of the school and Bible pages on the premises showed a statue of Jesus that had been spoilt with black paint. A 22-year-old local man was detained by the police and slammed with a hate crime, according to the Catholic Register.

After he saw the attacks, the Imam Slimi addressed his people and asked for donations.

"I told my community, there is nothing we can do now. But the church needs funds. We believe there is no discrimination in charity. It is the act that is rewarded. It doesn't matter who is the recipient," the Imam said.

Hence, his people collected CAD$5,000 in just one day, which was handed by Slimi in a cheque to Lando and the church board. He "told them, this is what any Muslim would do."

"We are walking together in this community. We keep our faith, and we have to honor and respect people of other faiths," he said.

The suspect for the vandalisation, Iqbal Hessan, said during the bail hearing that he was "upset with the Christian religion." His father told the court that he was schizophrenic, which probably led to his acting the way he did. It is thought that the church's property that was destroyed totaled CAD$10,000.

Oh hearing of his mental condition, the cops decided that they were "not proceeding with a hate crime (prosecution), because there was no evidence of mal-intent," said spokeswoman Const. Fiona Thivierge, to thestar.