A recent rise in hate crimes targeting Catholics in the U.S. virtually has been ignored by the mainstream media.
During the past six weeks alone, such hate crimes have included, according to The Federalist on Thursday:
- A wooden crucifix being shattered, and an American flag being burned at St. Athanasius Church in Brooklyn, N.Y.
- Also in Brooklyn, a statue of the baby Jesus in his mother's arms was beheaded in the peaceful garden of a church administrative building; and a statue of Fr. Jerzy Popiełuszko, a Polish martyr beaten to death in 1984 by Communist authorities for daring to stand for freedom, was spray-painted with anti-Polish messages and covered in trash.
- Shattered century-old stained glass windows, and a statue of a kneeling St. Juan Diego, the first indigenous American saint, was decapitated at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in San Diego, California.
- A statue of Christ was decapitated in the church garden of St. Charles Borromeo Church in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Such incidents, according to The Federalist, have not been reported like other alleged crimes that turned out to be fake – nooses that turn out to be garage pulls, bleach attacks that were staged, and graffiti that turned out to have been left by the supposed victim herself.
"The term 'hate crime' gets used too often these days," The Federalist's Christopher Bedford said. "More often enough than not, if you hear the term 'hate crime' you can rightly assume it's an attention-seeking fraud by the loudest 'victim' in the room, be they a student at Harvard or an actor in Hollywood.
"So why use the term at all? Because the above are crimes committed with the intention of instilling fear among Catholics: To let us know that the Church is not welcome here, to let us all know that Christianity — in its oldest and most visible institution — is not welcome here, and to let you know that God and beauty and morality and freedom and dignity and God's faithful are a target in your community."
Former President Donald Trump, a non-Catholic, spoke up loudly when attacks on Catholics happened. President Joe Biden, who repealed a Trump executive order restricting aid to agencies providing abortions overseas as part of family planning, "says he's a Catholic but seems to care about attacks on Catholic symbols and Catholic officials as little as he cares about Catholic beliefs," Bedford wrote.
The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts said, when it began tracking anti-Catholic attacks five years ago, there was about one per year in the state. But, in the past year, there have been 15 attacks.
Hate crimes against Catholics during the first two months of this year occurred in Boston, Fort Worth, Texas; Spokane, Washington; Youngstown, Ohio; Floyds Knobs, Indiana; Denver, Colorado; and El Paso, Texas.
The Federalist said vandalism and destruction only account for some anti-Catholic actions.
When current Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett was first nominated to the Court of Appeals, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., complained "the dogma lives loudly" within her.
When Trump nominated Brian Buescher for a federal court seat in 2019, Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, and then-Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., claimed he was an extremist because he belonged to Catholic men's organization the Knights of Columbus.
"It's especially sinister that this is happening, while supposed Catholics hold the nation's highest offices," Bedford said. "Last summer, an antifa mob in San Francisco ripped down a statue of St. Junipero Serra. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who calls herself a Catholic, ignored the incident.
"'I'm trying to save the world from coronavirus,' she said when asked on the Feast of St. Serra about the attacks on the religion she pretends to believe and in," Bedford added.
Three days later, another mob in Sacramento, California, toppled another statue of Serra.
Serra was a missionary who traveled from California to Mexico City by foot in the 18th Century to plead the case of the American Indians and to protest their mistreatment by Spanish soldiers.
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