Arson Suspected in St. Thomas More Church Fire

It appears that on Wednesday around 4:30 p.m. someone intentionally set fire to the celebrant chairs inside St. Thomas More Catholic church which is located near the FSU campus.

The Tallahassee Fire Department responded to the fire at 900 W. Tennessee Street.

Rector John Cayer told WCTV that “My first initial reaction to this is shock. How could this happen to a church? Having seen churches burn in the news, seeing this before, I didn’t ever think that this would happen to our church here.”

Cayer said a Florida State University student saw the smoke and called authorities.

TR first learned of the fire through a Facebook post by Katie Williams that stated:

“Please pray for our church, our priests, and the person that did this. If anyone was near St. Thomas More today around 4:30 pm please call TPD if you saw any going in or coming out of the church. The celebrant chairs in our church were set on fire in what looks like arson.”

“I am sick to my stomach, my heart aches, what has our world come to, who would do this. We are so lucky that a student entered the church early for mass and it wasn’t worse.”