EAST COUNTY CATHOLIC CHURCHES VANDALIZED WITH SWASTIKA GRAFFITI

Two East County Catholic churches discovered Saturday that they had been vandalized with swastikas and other phrases painted across their exteriors, sheriff ’s officials said.

St. Peter Chaldean Catholic Diocese in Rancho San Diego shared a video of the graffiti on its Facebook page Saturday morning, which had been shared more than 1,000 times by early afternoon.

The vandalism included symbols and phrases of conflicting ideology: swastikas and pentagrams were painted alongside the phrases “white power,”

“BLM” for Black Lives Matter and “Biden 2020.” The Nazi symbol, used to target Jewish people, was most prevalent.

“It makes zero sense,” said Fr. Daniel Shaba of St. Peter. “As much as I’ve tried to logically piece it together, it just makes no sense to me.”

He said the church has surveillance video of the vandalism occurring around 2:30 a.m., but he declined to give further details about what was captured due to the ongoing investigation.

Deputies were also alerted to similar graffiti on Our Mother of Perpetual Help Catholic Church, on Mollison Avenue in unincorporated El Cajon. The graffiti included swastikas, authorities said.

Shaba said St. Peter received an outpouring of support after making the graffiti public on Facebook. He said his phone has been ringing nonstop with hundreds of people offering to help. The damage had been mostly cleaned up by late afternoon, he said.

“Right now, what we are telling the community to do is to pray for more peace in the world, first and foremost,” he said. “But, also the repentance of these people that decided to do this to the church.”