THE 17-year-old boy, who with his father was attacked during Sunday’s worship service at the Paradise United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands in Norwood, St James, was yesterday still unconscious in hospital.

The teenager was chopped several times by three men brandishing knives and machetes who invaded the church. The teenager’s father was also attacked when he intervened.

“His father, who was chopped in the head, was treated [at the Cornwall Regional Hospital] and sent home, but he is still unconscious,” said Rev Gordon Evans, pastor of the Paradise United Church.

“I hope that by the Grace of God he will pull through,” Evans said yesterday.

No one has been arrested for the morning attack that shocked church members and residents of the violent-prone Norwood community, the church’s home base for the past eight years.

Meanwhile, Evans and the United Church’s general secretary, Rev Dr Colin Cowan, yesterday condemned the attack, saying it was a part of the moral decay affecting the society.

“The wave of crime and violence has reached an unbearable proportion and the attack in the church shows the effect of the scourge in Jamaica.

This appalling attack leaves one to wonder when the country will get out of this moral decay,” Cowan told the Observer yesterday.

Evans added: “What the attack brings out to us is the kind of godlessness that is in the hearts of our young people. It is indicative of a people who have no respect for God or the things of God.”

Meanwhile, Evans, who was out of the parish at the time of the attack, said yesterday that professional help was being sought for traumatised members who witnessed the incident.