(Oregon Right to Life) — St. Patrick Catholic Church in Portland was vandalized with pro-abortion graffiti last weekend in the third such attack against the historic church since 2021.
The vandal spray-painted vulgar messages on the sidewalk outside St. Patrick and on the church’s front doors sometime before Sunday Mass on April 28. Messages included “my body my choice” as well as explicit language.
The church’s pastor addressed the attack in his Sunday homily, explaining that he rejected a suggestion to immediately remove the graffiti, CatholicVote reported.
“You probably saw the graffiti on the way in,” Father Timothy Furlow said to the parishioners. “I wanted you to see it. “Somebody said, ‘Oh we gotta cover this up.’ And then I’m like, ‘Nope, I want them to see that.’ And the reason is because it fits kind of perfectly with what the core message of the Gospel is.”
The priest explained that, without God’s grace, nothing good is possible. With God’s grace, however, anything is possible… including radical conversion.
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According to Father Furlow, the vandal operates alone and has graffitied the church in the past. The priest said he’s previously felt tempted to think, “I want to get that guy. Like, you know, I want him to get his comeuppance.”
“But the other part of me, the part of my heart that the Holy Spirit is working in, that I let Him work in, thinks: what I really want is for him to be an usher,” Furlow said.
The priest said he wants the vandal to be inspired by God to change his ways and ultimately enter with faith through “the door that he once cursed and spray-painted.”
St. Patrick is Portland’s oldest Catholic Church. The historic building was previously vandalized twice during the summer of 2021 when the leaked draft of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson sparked nationwide vandalism of churches and pro-life pregnancy resource centers.
Oregon Right to Life believes in the sanctity of all human life from the moment of conception to natural death, and opposes abortion at any point of gestation. ORTL also has a long-standing opposition to the use of force, intimidation, and violence. Read our full position statements here.
