The Rev. Edward Markley, a Catholic priest who vandalized abortion clinics including a sledgehammer attack on a clinic in Birmingham, has died.

He was 79.

Markley died Monday morning, Jan. 14, at St. Bernard Abbey in Cullman, where he was a Benedictine monk, the abbey announced.

On May 12, 1984, Markley used a sledgehammer to smash equipment at Birmingham Women’s Medical Clinic. He was pastor of Our Lady of Shoals Catholic Church in Tuscumbia at the time. Markley was also convicted of assault in 1985 for a 1984 attack on the Women’s Community Health Center in Huntsville in which he sprayed the clinic with red paint. A judge ordered Markley to pay a judgment of $2,400 to the center and two employees, but Markley refused and would not voluntarily surrender, so deputies from Madison and Cullman counties arrested him at St. Bernard’s Abbey and took him to Huntsville, 50 miles from Cullman.

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Markley was also ordered not to go within 500 feet of the Birmingham abortion clinic that he damaged with a sledgehammer. Markley was sentenced to 10 years probation for burglary and criminal mischief, and was ordered to jail in 1985 for violating terms of his probation by taking part in anti-abortion protests in front of Birmingham clinics.

The late Bishop Joseph Vath, who as head of the Diocese of Birmingham was Markley’s superior, issued a statement at the time supportive of the priest’s actions. ''If we are convinced that abortion is the taking of innocent life according to God’s revealed word, he is not acting unjustly according to God’s law in defending the innocent unborn ones,'' Vath said. ''The right to life certainly supersedes the right to property or to privacy.''

Markley was born Sept. 5, 1939. He took vows as a monk at St. Bernard Abbey on June 12, 1960. He was ordained to the priesthood on June 10, 1966.

“Serving the abbey, our schools, and the Diocese of Birmingham and Archdiocese of Mobile in a variety of capacities over the years, he touched many lives with his pastoral concern, his love for following Christ, and his deep spirituality and prayer life,” the abbey said in a statement posted on Facebook. “He was an exemplary monk, who will be greatly missed by his brothers. He died peacefully at the abbey around 8:20 this morning, in the presence of his brother monks, who had been keeping vigil with him for several days.”