The fire, lit inside the day chapel, caused minor damage and nobody was hurt.

"It was out within 15 minutes," Father Joe Grayland said at the time. "The fire brigade inspector said it was minutes away from losing control."

However, the short-lived fire coated much of the inside of the building with a thin layer of ash.

After months of hard work, the cleanup is complete and the Catholic cathedral reopened with an early Mass on Sunday.

That Mass began with a blessing - which continued at a second mass - just in time for the St James' Catholic School 65th jubilee celebrations.

The giant cleanup

Every nook and cranny of the cathedral had to be cleaned, so scaffolding was required. They work started on the wooden ceiling and progressed downwards.

Parish manager Steph Grantham says the scaffolding has been removed and a final "big clean" was carried out on Thursday.

The pews and other items that had been removed for the mammoth cleaning task have been put back.

"Now you wouldn't know if you didn't know [about the fire]. Some items, big curtains and other things have been sent off for cleaning."

The carpet was also cleaned.

While the biggest tasks have been completed, Grantham says many smaller things will take their place on the parish "to do" list.

The cost of the cleaning is covered by insurance.

A man has been arrested in relation to the incident and is facing arson charges.

Source

• Stuff

Cheyenne Destiny Jade Reed, 38 burned down St Margaret's Presbyterian Church in Farrington Ave, Bishopdale, during May 2016. Read more

His mother Kath Payne, said her son had a "strong mind "He's not a mindless church-burning thug. He had a really good sized bout of depression and he made some really stupid choices in the midst of it." Read more

Judge Saunders said Lowenstein saw his actions as a way of getting back at his father for his strict religious upbringing. He had tried to reach out to his father but felt his father had not been interested in him. Read more

A report by Fire and Emergency NZ, released to the Herald on Sunday under the Official Information Act, has classified the fire as "incendiary".

"The cause of this fire is believed to be the deliberate ignition of an accelerant of some kind by a person or persons unknown," the report concludes. Read more

It is the fourth fire at the Catholic school in the past five years.

The police are investigating the cause of the fire - arson is suspected.

One of the buildings housed a staff room and the computer equipment for the school.

The second building contained the Centre of Culture and Knowledge which was opened last year.

The Centre is the only one of its kind in a school in New Caledonia.

Karen Cazeau, director of the Diocesan Directorate of Catholic Education (DDEC), said it was a place where all the young people, the educators and the teachers constantly rubbed shoulders.

Cazeau said she was there to see the damage and to support the team.

"It's a feeling of discouragement that predominates. There have already been fires in this high school, it's sad."

18 months ago the repair of two fire-damaged buildings cost about CFP40 million ($NZ 560,000).

Père Guéneau high school has 364 students from all over the country, more than 60% of whom are boarders.

The boarders were allowed to return to the school on Sunday, and classes resumed for all students on Tuesday.

The DDEC has 71 schools: forty-eight kindergartens and primary schools, thirteen colleges and eight vocational high schools.

In all, nearly 14,000 students are in school.

Source

• la1ere.francetvinfo.fr
• la1ere.francetvinfo.fr
• ouest-france.fr
• lnc.nc
• lnc.nc
• Image: Facebook

The pair will appear in Hamilton District Court on Wednesday charged with arson.

Fireworks were found at the scene of the fire on Saturday. Continue reading

Read about the fire

He also ruled there was not enough evidence to suggest the fire had been started deliberately in the first place.

After the ruling, Mischeski, who was in court to hear the judgment, thanked Courtney.

Her lawyer Jo Woodcock was also "really pleased" with the outcome and said it had been difficult for Mischeski to have been accused of being involved in destroying the church, a place which had been a big part of her life.

Mischeski was arrested and charged with arson by New Plymouth police only hours after a blaze gutted the Brooklands Rd church and damaged the neighbouring St Pius X School library.

Outside of court, Father Craig Butler said while he was pleased with the ruling, parishioners of St Philomena's were still sad about what had happened.

Following the fire, the church was demolished in July 2014.

"I continue to grieve with them for the loss of the church," he said.

Courtney heard reports from New Zealand Fire Service's Matt Crabtree, Grant Weavers who acted on behalf of the church's insurer and Ken Legat who reviewed the case for Woodcock.

He said while the three men agreed the fire had started in the children's room in the church building, none found evidence of an accelerant being used.

While Crabtree and Weavers believed the fire had been deliberate, Legat believed the cause of the fire was undetermined.

While Crabtree and Weavers both ruled out an electrical cause for the fire in their reports, Courtney said both men admitted under cross examination at the hearing that it could have been a possible factor.

He said reports from church goers about problems at the building, including a malfunctioning ceiling fan, flickering lights and blown fuses were not investigated and an independent electrical inspection was not requested by police.

The Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes near the Sea of Galilee was set alight on June 18 and anti-Christian graffiti was daubed on its walls.

A crowd-funding campaign by a group of Orthodox rabbis and Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein raised NZ$20,000 - as at July 27 - for repairs to the church.

"Condemnation is not enough; after a while it loses its credibility," said Elijah Interfaith Institute Director Rabbi Alon Goshen-Gottstein, who is spearheading the effort.

"When Jews reach into their pockets to support a cause, one knows they are serious," he said in a Times of Israel report.

The project received the endorsement of 17 leading Orthodox rabbis.

"The church is visited daily by 5000 people, making this act of vandalism the most visible to date in a series of attacks on religious sites of other religions," a statement from the group said.

"The accompanying graffiti appealed to texts from the Jewish prayer book, making it an attack on explicitly religious grounds."

Last week, Moshe Ya'alon, Israel's defence minister, ordered the detention without trial of Mordechai Meyer, 18, for extremist activities believed to include starting the fire at the Galilee church.

He was one of three extremists detained after Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government was prompted to launch an unprecedented offensive against "Jewish terrorism".

This followed an arson attack by suspected hardline settlers in the West Bank village of Duma last Friday that killed a one-year-old Palestinian toddler and gravely injured his parents and brother.

Meanwhile, Catholic Church leaders in Israel filed a complaint for incitement with the police against the leader of the far-right group Lehava, Benzi Gopstein, after it was reported that he called for churches in Israel to be torched.

Sources

• Times of Israel
• The Telegraph
• Haaretz
• Image: Times of Israel

Fires were lit on June 17 in the monastery section of the Church of the Multiplication, in Tabgha on the Sea of Galilee.

Israeli police said it was arson.

The flames consumed much of the interior of the monastery and destroyed the roof, leaving only charred remains of Bibles and other objects.

Graffiti scrawled in red Hebrew lettering on a wall outside the church read, "Idols will have their heads cut off".

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said she condemned the attack "in the strongest terms".

Police detained 16 Jewish settlers, all of them minors, for questioning over the incident and later released them.

Continue reading

Fire destroyed the 123-year-old St James Church in Brighton in late March.

And fires at St Mary's Church in Dandenong caused A$250,000 worth of damage.

A separate blaze started near a door at St Mary's in St Kilda East caused little damage.

Bishop Peter Elliott said the Catholic archdiocese would increase security at local churches.

Bishop Elliott suggested an arsonist with a "very disturbed mind" was responsible for the fires, but doubted the instigator was a victim of sexual abuse.

A spokesperson for a victims' support group said it was possible an arsonist was simply targeting churches generally, rather than those linked to abuse.

Continue reading

Last week, a group of about 10 mostly elderly people, several of whom were family members, supported Donna Joy Esma Mischeski in court where she pleaded not guilty to wilfully damaging Saint Philomena Church.

One of her supporters says she believes Ms Mischeski, who is a member of the Catholic community, would never have intended to cause any harm.

Outside, her brother-in-law Laurie Koch said Mischeski had extensive mental health issues and should be in supportive care.

A psychiatrist is satisfied Ms Mischeski is fit to stand trial.

She has been remanded on bail until her case review hearing on May 15

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• NewsTalkZB
• Image: Static2.stuff.co.nz

The Bowen St Baptist Church community centre was torched in January 2011 by Feilding firebug Richard David Elliott, a security guard tasked with patrolling the town's CBD between 9pm and 3am each night.

Elliott was jailed for seven years after lighting a string of fires, including two at the church, which caused nearly $1.8 million worth of damage.

"Human nature can be quite fickle, and there were circumstances that caused this young guy to do what he did," Hince said.

"Now what he did was very wrong, and he knows that, but he found he was just doing it, and couldn't stop, and I think we're all susceptible to that type of thing.

"What has come out of that is he has shown true remorse for what he has done and, as a church, we have acknowledged our forgiveness towards him."

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: Stuff.co.nz