大象传媒 Presenter: 大象传媒 Newsline has highlighted a number of attacks on churches in recent weeks. The latest has left a 135 year old Protestant church in north Belfast a burnt-out shell. Whitehouse Presbyterian Church on the Shore Road has been targeted before. The police say the latest arson may have been sectarian. Catholics and Protestants have joined in the condemnation. Noreen Erskine reports.
大象传媒 Reporter: The charred remains of Whitehouse Presbyterian Church after flames swept through it around half-past-three this morning. Pews, the pulpit, the organ and communion table were destroyed in the fire. It also engulfed stained-glass windows, including one commemorating local people killed in the Blitz in 1941.
As fire-crews damped-down smouldering embers, people from across the community divide gathered to offer support and sympathy, among them a priest whose own church was destroyed in an arson attack last year.
All the Catholic churches in this area, we will be planning to take up a special collection on Sunday week, please God, as a gesture of our sympathy and concern for this awful act of desecration.
Our rose window which remembered the victims of the Blitz in this area; our font which remembered the children who died; so many memories for so many families over the years, and every pew in the church represents people鈥檚 lives and memories. And so we鈥檙e just deeply saddened and very shocked by it all.
大象传媒 Reporter: Police believe the fire was started in the roof of the church.
The nature of the climate in our society at this point in time would cause me to ensure that I don鈥檛 rule out the possibility of a sectarian motive.
大象传媒 Reporter: The Presbyterian Moderator says the church will be rebuilt.
This church will become a living reality again, people will worship in that charred-out building. And that I am sure of. As far as I know, this congregation do not hold hatred in their heart.
大象传媒 Reporter: Services this Sunday will be held in the church hall.
Meanwhile, another fire in an adjoining yard destroyed six lorries and damaged two others. Like the church, its owners have been the target of previous arson attacks.
Noreen Erskine, 大象传媒 Newsline.