St. James United Church is a downtown Montreal landmark, and it usually welcomes what it brings — it has an outdoor public space in front that is often used by those who want to make a religious or philosophical statement.
But it came as a surprise to church officials Monday when they found graffiti scrawled on the front facade of the church, located on Ste. Catherine Street West near St. Alexander Street.
The graffiti seems to be a tag, or a graffiti artist’s signature, that was scrawled sometime during the night from Sunday to Monday. Some is next to the church stairs and some is directly above a sculpture that represents Jesus as a homeless person.
Graffiti on St. James United Church in Montreal (Photo courtesy of St. James United Church)
“We just feel it’s really unfortunate that someone has chosen this time and this place to tag us,” Rev. Arlen Bonnar, the minister at St. James, told CTV News.
I have noted that Holy Week, the week before Easter, is very special to Protestants and to Christians in general, so the vandalism comes at a sensitive time.
The message does not seem to be anti-religious but it is the first time in the church’s 133-year history – that he knows of – that the building has been defaced with graffiti, Bonnar said.
“I know that people see these folks as urban artists,” he said. “But I would rather think our great old cathedral downtown isn’t necessarily a canvass for that kind of thing.”
Bonnar said he will file a police report and that he plans to have the graffiti removed, but he wonders if more of it will appear in the future.
“I don’t want to over-exaggerate it,” Bonnar said.
But “it almost seemed as if for many years St. James — and I’m hoping other places — were off-limits… a certain amount of ‘let’s respect the historical, let’s respect the religious,’ because we were not on the tag list,” he said.
“Now we are.”