On Thursday, a man was arrested for vandalizing a Catholic church in the small Northern Californian town of Colusa.
Fox News reports that the man was 67-year-old James Stoltenberg, who was arrested on October 27th after an investigation determined his culpability in the defacing of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Colusa, which is located in the Sacramento Valley region.
The vandalism occurred two days prior to Stoltenberg’s arrest, when the church discovered obscenities carved into the altar and damage to several historic items in the church, all of which resulted in over $10,000 worth of damage.
Stoltenberg has since been booked in the Colusa County Jail, and is soon to face charges from the Colusa County District Attorney’s office. District Attorney Matthew Beauchamp said that, at this time, the attack appears to be directly motivated by Stoltenberg’s anti-Catholic prejudice, with Stoltenberg saying that he considers Catholicism to be a “fake” religion.
Although it is not yet known if Stoltenberg had any political motivations, the year 2022 has seen a rise in attacks and acts of vandalism against churches, particularly Catholic churches, in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s historic decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, an act which returned the question of the legality of abortion to individual states. Following the decision in June, numerous far-left domestic terrorist orgnizations began coordinated campaigns to attack churches and pro-life pregnancy centers, as well as targeted harassment of conservative Supreme Court justices who voted in favor of overturning Roe.