Knights of Columbus remove satanic graffiti from outside D.C. church

Washington D.C., Mar 16, 2021 / 18:00 pm

A D.C. Knights of Columbus chapter removed satanic graffiti from outside a parish on Capitol Hill this past Saturday. 

On Saturday morning, Patrick Abbott, an officer in local Patrick Cardinal O'Boyle Council 11302 of the Knights of Columbus, received a text message from a fellow Knight. He was asking about an image that had appeared on the sidewalk outside of the church of St. Joseph's on Capitol Hill. 

"I took one look at the photo and said it was Satanic graffiti," said Abbott. "I offered to wash it up and headed out to clean it." 

The image in question was an encircled white chalk pentagram, with the letter "T" in the middle and numbers and symbols on top, and the word "Lucifer" underneath. Two other words alongside "Lucifer" were not distinguishable, although one appeared to be "Jesus." The pentagram has a long association with satanism and the occult. 

After spraying the graffiti with holy water, Abbott said he cleaned the rest of it off with regular water. After the graffiti had been washed away, Abbott sprayed more holy water and prayed over the site. 

"Like Satan's empty promises, it came off with a little holy water and regular water," Abbott told CNA. 

Abbott said that he had no idea who would want to vandalize the area outside of the church, "other than a wannabe Satanist."

After Abbott cleaned up the area and prayed, he decided to replace the pentagram by drawing a cross and the words "God Bless" with orange chalk.

The graffiti outside St. Joseph's follows a string of acts of vandalism at U.S. churches in 2020, including churches being vandalized with pentagrams. 

In September, vandals painted pentagrams, upside down crosses, swastikas, and other offensive symbols on St. Peter's Chaldean Catholic Cathedral in El Cajon, California.

Earlier in 2020, a statue of Saint Therese of Lisieux was defaced with an upside-down cross, the word "satan," and a pentagram.

Other Catholic churches were subject to arson attacks and vandalism, with religious statues beheaded or defaced. Numerous public statues of St. Junipero Serra were torn down, defaced, and destroyed in California. 

In Brooklyn, a man toppled a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe outside of the Church of Our Lady of Solace. After the Knights of Columbus donated $10,000 for a replacement, a new statue was installed and dedicated on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

One U.S. senator wrote then-Attorney General William Barr in August, imploring him to intensify the agency's efforts in preventing and prosecuting the attacks on Catholic churches.