Anti-Catholic Violence? 18-Inch Pipe Bomb Found Behind Church After Sunday Mass

The quiet serenity that follows a Catholic Sunday Mass at the St. Dominic Catholic Church in Philadelphia was broken by wails of police sirens on Feb. 19th. It could have been worse. It could have been the violence of a stone-rending explosion.

At about 1:40 p.m. EST a passerby discovered an 18-inch long cut of PVC pipe capped on each end behind the church, it was filled with black powder Philadelphia Police said according to Fox News. It was a bomb.

After condoning off the area on Frankford Ave. between Benson St. and Blakiston Ln. the PPD bomb squad deployed to the church and secured the explosive device.

The pipebomb was later removed from the 126-year-old church and brought to police headquarters safely. No one was reported injured.

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Father Edward T. Kearns, pastor of St. Dominic Parish told OSV News cited by Detroit Catholic he was caught quite unaware of the bomb when police came, “I was surprised,” Kearns said. “I was watching a golf match. They were very quiet when they came in to pick it up and take it away.”

“I don’t think it was in connection to us,” Father Kearns speculated. “It was behind us, not on our property, (but) on the other side of the railroad tracks, on Conrail’s property. I know the cops, and I spoke to them directly. It was 100 yards from my church. It’s a big cemetery and I have fencing around it. The bomb was found another 20 feet from my fence.”

St Dominick’s
18-inch pipe bomb found behind Catholic church in Philadelphia https://t.co/w55mbui5ui via @nypost

— MatterThatMatters (@WillMatter4) February 20, 2023

According to Northeast Times, St. Dominick’s Parish is the oldest active Catholic church in Northeast Philadelphia and was added to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places in 2019. The outlet reported that the original church burned down in an 1896 fire and was replaced with the current building described by members of a Historical Commission subcommittee as “late-Victorian Gothic with subtle French influences.”

Alan Serge who lives near the church told CBS Philadelphia,

“My neighbor always takes his dog every day for a walk in the graveyard and he said he seen something that look like a PVC pipe with two ends on it,” Serge said. “He touched it and he moved it out of the walkway and he said, ‘Oh God that looks like a pipe bomb.’ So, he called 911.”

“It’s pretty scary if it was a friggin’ pipe bomb,” Serge added. “I mean I’m not letting my kids go over there, I know that. That’s for a fact.”

Other neighbors told the local CBS affiliate that they’re frightened and they want answers.

“I don’t think (anyone) is out to get us,” Father Kearns said according to Detroit Catholic. “But you never know these days. There’s so much anger in the world.”

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