The attack, which occurred sometime between 8pm on Saturday night and 9am on Sunday, co-incided with a weekend visit to the parish by the Bishop of Derry Most Rev. Dr. Seamus Hegarty to confirm children from St. Columba's School, Newbuildings.

Fr. Mullan said he hoped the incident was not directly linked to the Bishop's visit to the parish but he was concerned that this was a planned sectarian attack on the Catholic Oratory.

The Oratory has been a target for numerous sectarian attacks in the past, but according to the parish priest, this is the first serious incident for some time.

"Thankfully there have been few incidents at the Oratory over the past 18 months or so. Quite often, bottles or glasses are thrown into the Oratory grounds, but we're told these are the actions of drunken fellahs coming out of bars. However, this is different, this was a deliberate, planned attack. The paintbomb had to be made. This wasn't the actions of someone with a drink in them. You don't come out of a bar with a paintbomb. Someone deliberately decided to do this".

Fr. Mullan said he felt it necessary to speak out to enlist the support of the good people of Newbuildings in ensuring that this wasn't the beginning of a new onslaught of attacks on the Oratory.

"The paint damage can be cleaned up, but unfortunately it's an indicator that the spirit of sectarian badness hasn't gone away in Newbuildings. I hope the good people of Newbuildings will do all they can to ensure that this sort of incident is nipped in the bud", the parish priest added.