In a story that I meant to get up yesterday, it was reported that Father Paul Rutten, director of the Pius XII Newman Center at South Dakota State University in Brookings, awoke to seeing the results of an overnight visit from vandals who had spray painted a female symbol on a pro life sign in front of the church and painted �NO IRAQ WAR� on the front of the church.
The sign which was painted on is part of a display which travels to different locations around South Dakota each week. The sign displays the number of abortions done in South Dakota in 2002, which was 826, and lists the 44 million abortions done in the U.S. since the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion in the U.S. in 1973. The display has been at the Newman Center since last Saturday, and is to remain until this Saturday. Father Paul said he is checking into what it will take to replace the sign.More on the story here.Father Paul saw no logical connection between the attack on the pro life display and the anti-war graffiti painted on the side of the church. Since the official stance of the Catholic Church generally frowns on war, a Catholic church seems an unlikely target for such a sentiment.
The church also hasn�t made any bold public statements on the issue of abortion recently, other than the display which was vandalized, and the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) last year.
You can see a video of the vandals' work here.
As for there not being an obvious logical connection between the attack on the pro-life display and the anti-war graffiti painted on the side of the church, most would agree. But in the twisted minds of the people that committ acts of vandalism against a church, and do so protesting in favor of taking the life of unborn children, and against a war to defeat those that kill innocent human beings in the name of a perverse ideology, apparently there is a connection - albeit a poorly misquided one based on a perverse ideology of their own.
