Pink paint has been removed from a desecrated statue of Jesus damaged by vandals on Easter Sunday.
The vandalism of the statue was not as damaging as first feared, and the owner of an Alpharetta company specializing in commercial restoration was able to remove the offending paint from the sculpture outside the St. Peter Chanel Catholic Church on Woodstock Road in Roswell.
John Morley, president of J.J. Morley Enterprises said he came to the church Monday morning because “it was too sad to see it the way it was left.”
“We used graffiti remover and a light solvent final rub with small brushes and cotton tips, and got in there and got all the detail done,” Morley said. He said it took him “a few hours” to remove the paint that had been sprayed on the statue.
“I thought the least I could do was make this headache go away for them,” Morley said. “They were very appreciative.”
Pink paint was sprayed on the face and hands, and the $80,000 statue was tagged elsewhere with offensive symbols. Church officials believe the vandalism probably happened during the early-morning hours on Sunday; it was discovered by members arriving for early Easter services on Sunday.
Roswell police Det. Ken Kraus said Monday that investigators would be sending samples of the paint to a GBI lab for analysis and to try to determine where the paint came from.
“Other than that, we’re just looking for the motivations, retaliations, or somebody trying to send a signal to the Catholic church here,” he said. “We’ve got to try to look in every direction.”
Kraus speculated that it only took the vandal or vandals a minute or so to spray-paint the statue’s face and hands and to draw a pentagram on the chest and add pink genitalia to the statue.
“There’s probably a signal behind this,” Kraus told the AJC. “Some type of retaliation or some type of hatred toward this kind of church or religion.” Kraus said the pentagram is "typically ... a satanic, demonic" symbol.
“The first thought that came to my mind was hurt,” said Father Peter Rau, the church’s pastor.
“As the day passed, to begin to see the children’s reaction -- really, it hurt them, especially on Easter morning,” Rau said.
“Then, as I looked closer and to realize, the markings, the coverings, are all trying to say that our Lord doesn’t exist, and that he’s not present,” Rau told the AJC. “He’s indeed present despite all this.”
Rau said the statue is “just a piece of marble, but for all that look upon it, it has a bigger significance and meaning.”
Trey Caso, 15, a freshman at Blessed Trinity Catholic High School, which is just behind the church, called the vandalism “disrespectful.”
“The person was cowardly for doing that and hopefully gets caught,” Caso said. “I think it’s Satanic people that did this, somebody who was really trying to hurt somebody by doing this.”
“It’s a real shame to see this happen to our church, especially on the main statue in front of the church,” said Wes Pluhar, a 16-year-old sophomore at Blessed Trinity.
Harry C. Palmatier, facilities manager for the church, said he’s never seen anything like this in his 16 years at the church. His first reaction when seeing the desecration on Sunday was one of disappointment.
“Disappointed in people, disappointed in parents, disappointed in children,” said Palmatier. “It just seems the older I get, the more I see stuff like this, and it’s a disappointment.”
“If it is juveniles, they’ll be talking,” said Roswell police Lt. James McGee.
“This is pretty low, no matter what religion you are, to desecrate something of religious value like this,” McGee said. “We’ll be looking for them with zeal.”
Dan Shimek, a visitor from New York, was attending Monday morning mass at the church.
“It’s awful,” Shimek said. “It obviously was planned to be done on Easter.”
Pamela Garrett, a parishioner for the past six years, came to the church Monday morning to place flowers at the base of the damaged statue.
Garrett said her initial reaction was “horror, and compassion for the poor souls who could be so affected by such evil that they could do such a thing.”
Church officials said the statue was just recently purchased with a gift from one of the parish’s 3,000 families.
“How heartbreaking for them, to have their gift so desecrated,” Garrett said. “How heartbreaking for them and for the whole parish.”
About the Author
