CV NEWS FEED // An armed woman broke into a rectory of a parish in Omaha, attempted to stab the pastor, and destroyed the interior of the building on the morning of March 3.
St. Frances Cabrini Catholic Church in south Omaha posted on Facebook that a woman named Noemi Guzman broke into the rectory around 6 a.m. on March 3. According to a police report, she was armed with a knife and began ransacking the rectory, while the pastor, Fr. Damian Zuerlein, barricaded himself in a room and called 911.
First responders arrived shortly after and rescued Zuerlein through a window. The police reported that Guzman then barricaded herself in the rectory and was taken into custody hours later when she attempted to jump from the second floor.
Zuerlein was unharmed, and the Archdiocese of Omaha expressed gratitude in a statement to 6 News “for the safe conclusion to the incident at the St. Frances Cabrini rectory this morning, especially for the swift actions of first responders.”
Guzman has been taken to a hospital and charges are pending.
The police report also states that the break-in at the rectory was the second incident that Guzman was involved in that morning.
Earlier in the morning, Guzman was involved in a dispute with her father in a house close to the St. Frances Cabrini Catholic Church. The police report reads that Guzman had covered her father in flammable liquid, and cut him with a knife. She then attempted to start a fire in the house, and then “left on foot”. Less than an hour after this incident Guzman broke into the church’s rectory. The police reported that her father’s injuries were not life-threatening.
Sr. Mary Ann Meagher, a long-time friend of Fr. Zuerlein, told local outlet 6 News that hearing about the break-in was “crushing.”
“I say thank God he wasn’t, quote, physically hurt, but nobody, none of us have seen him or been with him since then,” Meagher said. “I think he’s just withdrawn to figure this out and heal from it.”
“It’s pretty damaging to be broken into,” she continued. “I want to say ‘Damian, hang in there and thank you for everything you’ve done, and you have an enormous amount of people that are thinking about you and praying for you and supporting you through this.’”
CatholicVote’s violence tracker page has listed more than 400 vandalisms and attacks against Catholic churches in the United States since May of 2020.
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