Priest stabbed in the face during Mass as religion-based hate crime is on the rise worldwide

Attacks against priests appear to be on the rise around the globe following the latest assault in which a priest in Singapore was stabbed in the face during a Mass on Saturday Nov.9., marking at least the third attack of its kind this month.Father Christopher Lee – parish priest of St.

Joseph church in the west-central Singapore region of Bukit Timah – was attacked by Basnayake Keith Spencer with a knife while he was distributing Holy Communion, reported Catholic media outlet OSV News on Friday.Spencer has reportedly been charged with the “offense of voluntarily causing grievous hurt by a dangerous weapon” and remanded by a court in Singapore for three weeks.Lee was reported to have sustained a “laceration on his tongue,” along with a cut on his upper lip and on the corner of his mouth.He is said to be recovering from his injuries. The Father in Singapore was not the only priest to have been assaulted last Saturday, as a monastery in Spain’s Valencia region was also attacked by a middle-aged man who yelled out “I am Jesus Christ” during his ambush before he was subdued.Three friars at the Monastery of Santo Espíritu del Monte in Gilet, Spain were injured in the attack after the unidentified man “wielding a blunt object, burst into the premises with a violent and provocative attitude,” according to a statement by the Immaculate Conception of the Franciscan Order, the community to which the monastery belongs, reported multiple reports.Father Juan Antonio Llorente, 76 – one of three friars attacked in the incident – died two days later in a hospital after succumbing to his injuries on Monday. Nov.

9 was marred by one other attack on a priest in Poland, where Father Lech Lachowicz, 72, died due to extensive brain damage following an attack one-week prior.An axe-wielding 27-year-old – whose identity remains unclear – attacked Lachowicz on Nov.3 in his rectory during an alleged robbery attempt in a Szczytno parish in northeastern...