Pro-Life Display Vandalized at St. Louis County Catholic Church

A pro-life display at a Catholic Church near St. Louis, Missouri, was vandalized with red paint between October 2 and 3, Catholic News Agency reported.

According to the report:

Parishioners attending daily Mass Tuesday morning discovered the display — which consisted of a cluster of white crosses and a white banner facing the street reading ‘Pray to End Abortion’ — with red spray paint all over the crosses and the words ‘Pro-life is a lie, you don’t care if people die’ scrawled on the banner.

The display was located on the grounds of St. Paul Catholic Church, which also has a school and is located roughly 20 minutes outside the city. The church is one of several around the archdiocese that held a public pro-life prayer service on October 1 for Respect Life Month, the report notes.

St. Paul’s pastor, Father John Nickolai, told the outlet there is no permanent damage to the property.

“The police came here this morning but I haven’t heard any more from them as of 3 this afternoon,” Nickolai said in an email.

St. Louis County Police told the outlet on Tuesday that it was investigating the “destruction of property/vandalism,” although it did not have any suspect information to share at the time.

Missouri is notably one of several states that have passed a total ban on abortion with limited exceptions following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

Catholic News Agency said it has tracked 112 incidents of vandalism attacks against Catholic Churches, pro-life pregnancy centers, maternity homes, and other pro-life organizations across the United States since someone leaked the Dobbs decision overturning Roe in May 2022. A tracker kept by CatholicVote shows 198 attacks on Catholic Churches and 88 attacks on pregnancy centers and pro-life groups since the Dobbs leak.

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray admitted in November 2022 that approximately 70 percent of abortion-related threats of violence in the United States since the Dobbs decision have been against pro-life groups. Even so, President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice has only indicted four pro-abortion activists under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act within the last two years while indicting over 30 pro-life activists in the same time frame.