A group of approximately ten Catholic parishioners from St. Michael’s Catholic Church was assaulted on Tuesday afternoon while peacefully praying the Rosary in Pliny Park in Vermont, across the street from a Planned Parenthood facility.
The incident took place around 4:15 p.m., during Holy Week.
The group was nearing the end of their weekly prayer vigil when a young man approached them and began spray-painting their large image of Our Lady of Guadalupe with pink paint.
The attacker then turned the spray paint on the participants themselves and their signs.
Some members held up signs to shield themselves from the paint.
The attacker also defaced a nearby “No Parking” sign, changing it to read “No Praying,” before running off while giggling.
Kerry Morton, one of the participants who was sprayed, told the Bennington Banner, “We were praying there as usual, and we were nearing the end of the Rosary, and there were about 10 of us there, and we were praying very peacefully and quietly, as usual. A young man came, and he started spraying the image that we have of ‘Our Lady of Guadalupe.’”
“Then he sprayed me and went over to the other people who were there and sprayed their signs as well,” Morton continued. “He tried to spray the other people too, but some of them held up the signs to avoid getting it on their bodies. Then he ran off giggling, and we didn’t have time to do anything, so we just continued praying the Rosary very silently.”
Despite the unprovoked attack, the prayer group responded with forgiveness.
“We’re praying for this young man,” Morton added.
They immediately continued their prayers and chose not to press charges when Brattleboro Police arrived to take statements.
Morton explained the group’s broader mission, saying, “We have people screaming at us. We have people giving us the finger. We’ve had pebbles thrown at us. We’ve had all kinds of things that happen. We just continue to go because we care about babies, about moms, about dads, about the workers at Planned Parenthood. We just care about even the ones who are doing these things to us, and we love them. We just want there to be peace.”
The Bennington Banner report noted, “The image of ‘Our Lady of Guadalupe’ is special to this group, based on the legend of the Virgin Mary’s miraculous appearance to an indigenous peasant in Mexico in 1531. Morton said the reason it’s so pertinent is that the ribbon she wore, from the Aztec culture, when she appeared to this man, meant that she was pregnant with Jesus in the womb. To them, it is a powerful anti-abortion, pro-life painting.”
The group has been holding these weekly Tuesday Rosary prayers in Pliny Park for about six years.
Brattleboro Police are still seeking the suspect, though no arrests have been publicly reported as of Saturday evening.
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