The number of attacks against Catholic and Protestant churches has skyrocketed in recent years, and the violence shows no sign of slowing down. The Family Research Council (FRC) has identified 915 “acts of hostility” against Christian churches since 2018, with the number of incidents increasing each year since.
Between January 2018 and September 2022, FRC tallied 420 attacks; in 2023 alone, it counted at least 436 attacks. Despite this massive spike in violence against churches, the current administration has failed to address the growing problem, which impacts citizens across the entire country.
Senator Calls on Biden to Uphold Rule of Law
On Wednesday, Sen. Marco Rubio sent a letter to President Joe Biden “demanding that he address the growing number of attacks on Catholic churches.” Since May 2020, Catholic churches have been attacked at least 400 times. Though 142 attacks occurred over 2020–2021, the incidents spiked after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was leaked. Since the leak, there have been 236 attacks on Catholic churches alone.
Florida, Rubio’s home state, “is one of the top ten states where attacks against Catholic churches are occurring,” the senator wrote. Yet, despite the massive destruction caused by the attacks, “only 25 percent of these crimes end in an arrest.”
“These religiously motivated attacks seldom result in any consequences for offenders and are part of a larger trend of fanatical activists targeting religious institutions,” Rubio wrote. “These attacks are not random nor are they the result of a temporary lapse in judgment by perpetrators.”
Destruction and Desecration Reveal Anti-Catholic Sentiment
Far from being random acts of violence, many of the attacks on Catholic churches include the targeted destruction of sacred items, such as statues, religious artwork, or sacramental items.
In early January 2023, the nativity scene at St. Nicholas of Tolentine in New York City was vandalized twice in the same night. That same night, a man broke into an abbey church in Arkansas, vandalized the marble altar, and stole two boxes that contained 1,500-year-old relics. One week later, a vandal committed a series of attacks against three local Catholic churches in New Jersey, throwing bricks through stained glass windows and setting a flagpole and a cross on fire.
In February, police removed an 18-inch pipe bomb discovered behind St. Dominic Catholic Church, one of the oldest churches in Philadelphia. On the Seattle University campus, the Chapel of St. Ignatius was vandalized in April. The perpetrator slashed benches and cushions, scratched out the names of God on the chapel’s walls, and destroyed books.
Some attacks seemed to have a distinctly anti-Marian intent. In Billings, Montana, someone broke into Mary Queen of Peace Catholic Church, stole three statues and several paintings estimated at $8,000, damaged artwork, and spray-painted “Mary is the whore of Babylon.” The following week, a man poured bleach on a Marian statue and threw a statue of baby Jesus down the stairs at a church in Massachusetts. In South Carolina, several statues of Mary were found “severely damaged” on Mother’s Day at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church.
Other incidents had the trappings of Satanist impulses. On June 5, a man broke into St. Joseph Church in New York City, seized the Eucharist, and threw it. According to the FRC report, the perpetrator was found “hitting himself in the head with a monstrance.” In El Paso, Texas, vandals wrote “666” on items in Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church, “dumped holy oil,” and “turned crosses upside down.” Someone stole the tabernacle from St. Rita Indian Mission in September.
And at Saints Peter and Paul Church in San Francisco, a man received the Eucharist but did not consume it. Following a peaceful confrontation about this sacrilege, the man punched his confronter, ran out of the church, and deterred police by setting off a pipe bomb and igniting a Molotov cocktail, according to the FRC.
Political Motivations Behind Attacks
In addition to anti-Catholic motivations, some attacks were connected to pro-abortion activism. Ahead of the ballot issue that amended the state Constitution to protect abortion, Catholic churches in Ohio faced harassment and vandalism.
In August, a church in Parma, Ohio, was vandalized, and the perpetrators tore down the American flag, ripped posters, and wrote several messages referencing abortion and gender ideology. A sign opposing Issue 1, which would enshrine abortion access in Ohio’s constitution, was cut in half at St. Mary’s Church in Oxford, Ohio, and other signs were stolen or vandalized.
At Cincinnati’s Cathedral Basilica of St. Peter in Chains, the church’s signs opposing Issue 1 were stolen and vandalized. A short drive away, a “Vote No on Issue 1” sign at St. Monica–St. George Church was pulled out of the ground, thrown away, and then stolen after the church recovered it. Across the city, the same sign was removed from church property and replaced with “Vote Yes” signs. A sign opposing Issue 1 at St. Mary’s Church in Oxford, Ohio was cut in half, and other signs were stolen or vandalized.
Catholic bishops have noted the uptick in anti-Catholic violence and commented in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops January report on religious liberty that the increased vandalism and property destruction often “involved defacement of religious icons with pro-abortion messages,” as the Catholic News Agency reports. Since Dobbs, churches have reported pro-abortion graffiti, often including phrases like “If abortions aren’t safe, then neither are you” and “Jane’s Revenge,” a reference to Roe v. Wade’s Jane Roe. (RELATED: Bishops Against Proposal to Fund American Indian Abortions)
The USCCB report also noted the “general failure … of the federal government to apprehend and prosecute the perpetrators of such attacks, in contrast with the numerous charges brought against pro-life protesters outside abortion clinics.”
Indeed, as Rubio wrote just this week, “This imbalanced enforcement is despicable, and it undermines any notion that your [Biden’s] U.S. Department of Justice enforces the law without bias or prejudice.”
Catholics don’t expect special treatment from a president who shares their faith, but they do expect the same protection and equal treatment that other faiths receive. But perhaps even that is too much to ask for under our current regime.
Mary Frances Myler is a writer from Northern Michigan now living in Washington, D.C. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2022.
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