By Elizabeth Gresosky
This past weekend, the pastor Jonathan Shelley at Stedfast Baptist Church in Cedar Hill, Texas made a spectacle of children smashing various religious figures, including statues of angels and even the Blessed Mother.
As a “reward” for children reciting Bible verses, they were invited to come onto the stage and smash a statue with a hammer.
Shelley began pulling statues out of a bag, and when he unveiled the statue of the Blessed Mother, he said, “We got a ‘Mary’ for all the Catholics.”
When a girl chose the statue of the Blessed Mother to destroy, Shelley exclaimed, “Mary’s going down, Catholics!”
“Bam!” he yelled as the child smashed Our Lady.
Another child approached the stage, and Shelley told him to “choose your victim,” referring to the remaining statues featuring angels, which he referred to as “demons.”
A Baptist pastor in Texas brought children on stage to smash statues of Mary. Mary is the mother of all the faithful, for on the cross, Christ told John to behold her. Encouraging children to destroy and dismiss the most important woman in the world is an insult to Catholics, and the cause of removing church authority and tradition from the faithful.
— Catholics for Catholics 🇺🇲 (@CforCatholics) October 16, 2026
When video of the spectacle began circulating on X, many Catholics, and even some Protestants, expressed disdain.
“Not only is the pastor hateful but he is also ignorant. Jesus entrusted his mother to his beloved disciple and by extension to all believers, his disciples. Mary became John’s adopted mother and thereby spiritually the ‘Mother of all the faithful’. How is that man allowed to be near kids, his actions are the opposite of Christianity,” one user wrote.
Another user added that he used to be Protestant but “thanks be to God he pulled me out of that mess.”
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