NEW YORK — The college philosophy teacher accused of entering St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan with gasoline cans, lighter fluid and butane lighters had also booked a hotel just 20 minutes from the Vatican, a New York prosecutor said Wednesday. Assistant District Attorney David Stuart said during a brief court hearing that Lamparello was “planning to burn down St. Patrick’s Cathedral” when he was arrested last week. The prosecutor made no further remarks about the Rome plans but referred to Lamparello as a flight risk. He said Lamparello had spent “considerable time planning and surveilling” St. Patrick’s before his arrest. Police in Newark arrested Lamparello two nights before the St. Patrick’s incident after he allegedly refused to leave the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart at closing time after a late Mass.

Source: National Post April 24, 2019 16:04 UTC