Grotto vandalized on MacDonald Avenue (5 photos)

The grotto at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church was discovered vandalized Saturday morning. 

Four statues, representing Our Lady of Fatima, were found smashed to pieces outside the MacDonald Avenue church. A number of planters containing flowers were also vandalized.  

Father Paul Conway, who has been pastor at the parish for six years, hopes the statue of the Virgin Mary can be salvaged somehow. But the same can’t be said for the other three statues, which represent the three shepherd children in Portugal who reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary in 1917. 

“They’re destroyed. They’re not repairable,” Conway told SooToday. 

The grotto has become a well-known place for Saultites to pray since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in March of last year. 

“There have been people coming here every single day in their car and praying,” Conway said. 

Sault Ste. Marie Police Service is investigating the incident. 

“I’m not angry, I’m sad,” said Conway. “There’s hurt and pain in the people who do this, and I wish they would be able to deal with it and heal themselves, rather than through violence and vandalism.”