Chicago Parish, graffiti marked Mary statue

A historic Chicago parish was marked with graffiti over the weekend, and a statue of the Virgin Mary on the parish grounds was defaced with spray paint.

Although the author is unknown and remains at large, the statue of Mary has already been cleaned and restored.

Parishioners from St. Mary of Perpetual Help - All Saints St. Anthony Parish, located in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood, noticed the graffiti around 11 am on November 8.

Images broadcast by local news show “GOD IS DEAD” scribbled on an exterior church wall in pink spray paint. Another wall had spray painted "BIDEN" in smaller letters.

A statue of Mary outside the parish hall was sprayed on the face with pink and black paint. The church shared a November 9 image on social media of the statue of Mary, saying it had already been "cleaned and restored".

Local detectives are investigating the incident, NBC5 reported.

Construction of the church dates back to 1886 - completed in 1891 - and the parish began around 1880 to serve the Polish Catholics of the city. It underwent major renovations in 2002.

The pastor of the church and the archdiocese of Chicago could not be reached for further comment.

Numerous attacks on Catholic art and churches in the United States were documented throughout 2020, including three different desecrations of Marian statues on the same weekend in July.

At least three vandalism attacks occurred against Mary's images this year in New York City alone.

The Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in downtown Denver was marred by graffiti during a protest on June 1, with rioters spray-painting slogans like "GOD IS DEAD" and "PEDOFILES" [sic] outside the church.

A statue of the Virgin Mary was beheaded in Gary, Indiana on the evening of July 2 or the morning of July 3.

On July 11, a Florida man was arrested after he admitted crashing a minivan into the Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Ocala, Florida and then set it on fire while parishioners were inside. Nobody was hurt.

Also on July 11, a 249-year-old Californian mission founded by San Junipero Serra burned down in a fire that was suspected of being arson.

On the same day, a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary was attacked and beheaded in a parish in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Three days later, the vandals beheaded a statue of Christ outside the Good Shepherd Catholic Church in southwestern Miami-Dade County, the same day that a statue of the Blessed Virgin in St Mary's Cathedral in Colorado Springs was been marked with red paint in an act of vandalism.

In the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption in Bloomingburg, New York, a monument to the unborn children killed by abortion was torn down on the weekend of July 18.

At the end of August, the vandals beheaded a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Holy Family parish in Citrus Heights, California. A statue of the Ten Commandments, placed in the parish "in dedication to all those who have lost their lives due to abortion" was painted with a swastika.

In September, a man committed an hour-long vandalism spree at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Tioga, Louisiana, breaking at least six windows, banging several metal doors, and smashing numerous statues around the parish park. He was later arrested and charged.

The same month, vandals dropped a statue of Saint Teresa outside the Catholic parish of Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus in Midvale, Utah.

Later in September, a man was accused of smashing a 90-year-old statue of Christ inside St. Patrick's Cathedral in El Paso, Texas.

Also in September, a man grabbed a baseball bat on the ground of a Catholic seminary in Texas and damaged a crucifix and several doors, but did not harm seminary students.

The Catholic Cathedral of San Pietro in Caldea in El Cajon, California was defaced on September 25 by graffiti depicting "pentagrams, inverted crosses, white power, swastikas", as well as slogans such as "Biden 2020" and "BLM" (black Lives Matter).

That same evening, the Catholic Church of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, also in El Cajon, was similarly attacked, with the pastor discovering spray-painted swastikas on an exterior wall of the church the next day.

In mid-October, vandals shot down a statue of Mary and a statue of Christ outside the St. Germaine Catholic Church in Prescott Valley, Arizona, about 90 miles north of Phoenix.

Throughout the summer, numerous depictions of San Junipero Serra, especially in California, were forcibly pulled down by crowds of protesters.

A crowd of about 100 people demolished another statue of San Junípero Serra in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park on the evening of June 19. Rioters shot down a statue of San Junipero Serra in Sacramento on 4 July.

An October 12 protest at the San Rafael Arcangel Mission began peacefully but then turned violent when participants defaced the statue of saint Junipero Serra with red paint before dragging it to the ground with nylon straps and ropes.