A Catholic priest in Canada escaped harm Sunday after a person with a knife rushed at him throughout a Sunday night service in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
“It’s a really uncommon incident and I believe everyone concerned is sort of shaken up in consequence,” Winnipeg police consultant Constable Stephen Spencer stated, in accordance with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
“No person expects that once they go to church on Sunday or any day of the week, that any individual’s going to be there with a weapon and try to assault any individual within the church,” he stated.
Video of the 6 p.m. assault at Holy Ghost Parish was posted on social media platform X.
The video confirmed the priest arriving on the altar close to the center of the service, when a person in a yellow jacket approached. As they neared one another, the person within the yellow jacket pulled out a knife and raised it in his proper hand whereas making an attempt to grab the priest along with his left.
WARNING: The next video accommodates footage of an tried assault that some might discover disturbing.
A priest narrowly escaped being MARTYRED throughout Mass in Winnipeg, Canada this previous Sunday after being chased with a KNIFE by a THUG pic.twitter.com/ZzoARsoekc
— Catholic Area (@CatholicArena) February 11, 2025
The priest fled from the altar. The person within the yellow jacket didn’t comply with. As an alternative, he stabbed the knife into the altar and sat down in a chair behind the altar.
A person who was later revealed to be an off-duty Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer then walked up to the man, who didn’t resist, and handcuffed the attacker’s fingers behind his again.
Winnipeg Police Service consultant Constable Dani McKinnon stated police have no idea the attacker’s motive, in accordance with the Winnipeg Free Press.
She stated the priest didn’t know the person.
“This was extraordinarily surprising. We don’t usually hear of acts of violence occurring inside locations of worship in Winnipeg,” McKinnon stated.
“Police don’t imagine that the accused on this matter usually attended the church or was a part of the congregation, so it’s extra disturbing in {that a} motive hasn’t been established or might not till (the costs proceed to) court docket,” she stated.
“He appears pushed within the video, he appears to know the place he needs to go together with the assault,” she stated, including, “The pastor, he primarily stepped off the road of assault and saved himself.”
McKinnon known as it “a little bit of a miracle” that the officer was current and nobody was injured.
Pawel Olownia, 50, of Winnipeg, has been charged with assault with a weapon, possession of a weapon, and disturbing a gathering.
Olownia, who stays in custody, was beforehand convicted of assaulting a peace officer with a weapon in July 2018. He was sentenced to 11 months in jail in that case, the Free Press reported.
Olownia was given probation after 2004 convictions for assault, theft beneath $5,000 and uttering threats, for which he obtained probation.
This text appeared initially on The Western Journal.
