On the International Women’s Day the walls of Catholic churches in San Jose, Costa Rica (La Merced, LA Soledad and Nuestra Señora de Barrio Luján) were vandalized with gender related messages and graffities done with spray paint during the evening hours.

“Take your rosaries out of my ovaries” ; “Sexual Education Now”; “Sexist and Macho Church”, “My body is mine, I decide”, were just some of the messages written in red and black spray paint .

Other messages included insults against Pope Francis, also, during a women’s walk, paint was thrown over the sculpture of Pope Saint John Paul II located in the Metropolitan Cathedral, a work of Costa Rican artist Jimenez Deredia.

Priests from the different churches immediately took actions to paint over the messages.

“They did it on the east and north wall. I heard some noise at around 3 a.m. (…) We are asking the Municipality of San Jose for help with the videos, to see if we can identify the vandals”, stated Priest Carlos Humberto Rojas from La Soledad Church.

“In San Jose, the churches as well as other institutions are making a big effort to beautify the city. All the churches in downtown San Jose have been declared by the State as architectural heritage and these acts of vandalism attempt against the church and the state’s architectural heritage”, continued Rojas in his interview with daily La Nacion.

The National Theater and the Legislative Assembly were also the target of the acts of vandalism that took place later on Thursday evening after a group of women marched in San Jose with signs and songs with messages clearly directed against presidential candidate Fabricio Alvarado.

Early this Friday, the Costa Rican police informed of the arrest of 5 people, among them two 25-year-old twin sisters of last names Obregon Apestegui who apparently are the daughters of former Minister of Culture Manuel Obregón.

The other suspects, also detained under the crime of “Damages to the historical-architectural heritage” are of last names Calderon Sevilla, Segura Ujueta and Hall Romero, two of them are male.