Albuquerque church burglarized overnight

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Members of an Albuquerque church are cleaning up the damage from a break-in overnight.

Father Andy Pavlak with Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Catholic Church said a burglar broke into the church on Albuquerque’s West Mesa through a garage door, then used a pickaxe to try and get into the church’s offices.

“The main door from the garage to the office is where they really tried to get in and could never get through,” said Pavlak.

As far as they can tell nothing was stolen, but Pavlak wants to warn neighbors to be on alert.

“If anybody sees anything and this neighborhood has been going through so many changes. there’s a lot of stuff going on and so I think a lot of this is a wake-up call to the whole community that says if you see something say something,” he said.

It’s proof that even a church isn’t off limits in Albuquerque.

“It’s just not right,” said Pavlak. “I mean I get that it’s poverty related, it’s mental health related, it’s all kinds of other things related. But it’s just a part and parcel of the reality of where we are in this time of our history. It’s just really sad and the more than we can work together as a community to try to say we need to fix this.”