A nun was threatened by a man at a Prospect Heights church, and police are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime.
The nun, Sister Maria Amador, was praying in a pew around 2 p.m. Wednesday at Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph on Pacific Street, when the man approached her.
“I don’t believe in this because you don’t help the poor,” the man told her, according to police. When the nun didn’t respond, he said: “What did I say?”
Amador began to look toward a woman in another pew when the man said: “She can’t help you. I’m going to kill you,” according to authorities.
She ran away and screamed, “Help me! Help me! Help me!”
Amador says she stayed quiet out of fear of provoking him, but he ultimately threatened her.
“He got angrier and he came up to me more, and I said, “Something very dangerous is happening here.”
The man ran away when another church employee came to help. Surveillance video captured the encounter between him and the nun, police said.
Police are investigating the threats as a possible hate crime.
“She’s targeted why? Because she’s in a habit, because she’s a religious person,” said Monsignor Kieran Harrington.
Local
Despite escaping a potentially dangerous situation, the nun says she has no anger towards the man who threatened her.
“I welcome him,” she said. “Because he is my brother, because he is my faith. In my faith, my example is Jesus Christ.”
