Church staffers believe the vandalism occurred sometime late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning, they wrote. View Full Caption Facebook / St. Bartholomew Parish

CHICAGO — Administrators of St. Bartholomew Church in Portage Park arrived to work Thursday to find that a marble statue of the parish's namesake saint had been uprooted and beheaded.

Church staffers found the statue Thursday around the side of the church facing Addison Avenue, where it had been protected inside an iron fence, according to the Rev. Ricardo Castillo, the pastor of the church at 4949 W. Patterson Ave.

Someone appeared to have hopped the fence, tipped the statue and "broken it with a garden brick," Castillo said.

"We are appalled, and confused," Castillo said Friday. "I don't know how anyone could do that — there's no explanation for it."

Parishioners expressed anger over the vandalism.

One posted on Facebook, "And to do this on the National Day of Prayer...it is a hate crime!"

"I hope they find these despicable jerks and charge them as such," she wrote.

Detectives are investigating the incident and no one in is custody, according to police.

The statue at St. Bartholemew Church on Chicago's Northwest Side, before it was broken [St. Bartholomew Church]