The 116-year-old landmark's steeple came down. The roof burned out. Nearby homes were evacuated. Once again the cause is listed as currently unknown.

Toledo Fire & Rescue was called around 6:30 a.m. Saturday after reports of heavy black smoke pouring from the roof of the vacant church in the Five Points neighborhood. Crews arrived to find the building already heavily engulfed.

Officials warned of collapse risk and alerted people in surrounding homes. The steeple later fell. By Saturday afternoon excavators were tearing the ruined structure down.

Saint Agnes opened in 1910. It was among 29 parishes closed or merged by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Toledo in 2005. The parochial school shut the same year. The diocese no longer owns the property. A charter school now occupies the old school building next door and reported only minor smoke, water, and a cracked window.

One neighbor told local television: "About 6:45 we heard fire trucks and I peeked out my window and it literally looked like the whole street was on fire."

Investigators in Toledo have not named a suspect, a motive, or even a cause. Vacant churches do burn by accident. They also burn because someone wants them gone. The public is asked, week after week, to accept "unknown" as the last word while the buildings keep falling.

In the U.S. hostility against churches has jumped to hundreds of incidents a year - vandalism, arson or fires of uncertain origin, gun incidents, bomb threats.

Churches are not supposed to be disposable scenery. They are the markers of the civilisation that built the towns around them. When those markers keep mysteriously burning to the ground what does that say about our civilisation?

This is now happening every week all over the world.