Vandals Deface Church Before Anti-Abortion Event : Sherman Oaks: Splattered paint, graffiti and coat hangers are found at the entrance. A women’s clinic official denounces the crime.

Vandals splattered red paint on the doors of a Sherman Oaks church and otherwise defaced its front entrance early Saturday before about 200 Catholics arrived to attend Mass and, afterward, hold an anti-abortion prayer vigil at a nearby women’s clinic.

“This kind of vandalism is not going to deter the pro-life movement,” said Auxiliary Bishop Armando Ochoa of the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese, who celebrated the Mass at St. Francis de Sales Church and later led a procession to the Health Care Center for Women.

“There is always a radical element that disrespects God’s family,” Ochoa said.

Gail Pepper, supervisor of the women’s clinic, which was closed during the prayer vigil, decried the defacing of the church.

“That’s a shame,” she said. “That makes me angry.”

Los Angeles Police Sgt. Pat Shannon said that the defacing occurred after parishioners left the church Friday night and before people arrived for the 7 a.m. Mass. He said the identity of the vandals was unknown.

The splattered paint, red coat hangers and posters accusing the church of “crimes against women” at the Sherman Oaks church entrance recalled similar vandalism in 1989 and 1990 at Catholic churches in Los Angeles, Torrance and Silver Lake.

In July, 1990, at the archdiocesan headquarters, graffiti was scrawled on the walls, red coat hangers were left behind, and a large wooden cross festooned with condoms was bolted to the chancery door--suggesting that Catholic positions against abortion and condoms were both targeted in that case.

At the Sherman Oaks church, a stenciled slogan, “Operation Rescue Kills Women,” painted on the walls and sidewalk, misidentified the sponsors of Saturday’s anti-abortion protest. At Operation Rescue protests around the country, police have arrested and forcibly removed abortion opponents from clinic entrances.

But sponsors of the new Catholic anti-abortion movement spurn civil disobedience tactics, and the Los Angeles Catholic hierarchy has embraced the prayerful approach.

“We are not interested in blocking doorways or breaking the law,” said Bob Wassell of Ventura, a leader of the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants, the Hacienda Heights-based group that organized Saturday’s protest. An ex-participant in Operation Rescue events, Wassell said he would not repudiate the militant interdenominational group because “some of those people come to these prayer vigils.”

Los Angeles Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and three of his auxiliary bishops have readily participated in the Helpers’ six non-confrontational vigils, which began last June with Bishop Ochoa in Pacoima. By contrast, in 1989 Mahony gave only cautious support to Operation Rescue’s first large demonstrations in Los Angeles when scores of abortion opponents were arrested.

“We don’t want to fight fire with fire,” Ochoa said.

Typically, people who go to the vigils organized by Helpers of God’s Precious Infants sing and pray for an hour behind police lines outside an abortion clinic without interfering with people entering or leaving.

This approach--copied from the Brooklyn diocese--has “a positive rather than confrontational thrust, and it has a defined beginning and end,” said archdiocesan spokesman Bill Rivera.

The vigil-demonstration itself was uneventful on Saturday.

Three counterdemonstrators representing Catholics for a Free Choice quietly held up signs promoting their stance.

“We stand for the dignity of women and want to bring the Catholic Church up to date on reproductive issues,” spokeswoman Marina Moves said. She said her group was not responsible for the vandalism.

The turnout of about 200 adults and children was the smallest of the new series of vigils. More than 1,000 showed up for a vigil led by Mahony on Jan. 18 in East Los Angeles.

Since the Sherman Oaks clinic was closed, “sidewalk counselors” on hand Saturday to dissuade women arriving for abortions were confined to handing out anti-abortion tracts to passersby.

That did not discourage Deborah Grumbine of Whittier, who said she has been a sidewalk counselor for 17 years.

“Anytime we can give out literature and ask people to pray, we feel we are going to make a dent in the killing of unborn children,” Grumbine said.

On the other hand, Pepper, the clinic’s director, said that the church group’s “spectacle jeopardizes people’s privacy” and “costs the public a lot of tax money” because of the additional police protection and traffic control needed for such an event.