300 Attacks On Catholic Churches? Oh, Yeah!

It’s a grim milestone:   300 attacks on Catholic Churches since May 2020.   After midnight on Saturday, a man dressed all in black broke into Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Ledyard, Connecticut. He threw rocks, bricks, and sacramentals at multiple windows – then broke into the church and spent the next few hours ransacking the church, spray painting hate messages on the floor and multiple walls.   Local police responded to the crime scene immediately. And the state police hate crimes unit is already investigating, too.   But what about the FBI?    So far, crickets.   Actually, this is a common scenario.    Usually, state and local law police leap into action right away after an incident of anti-Catholic violence. And even though local law enforcement has limited resources, they end up making arrests in around 25% of cases.    But under the Biden administration, the FBI – with nearly unlimited investigative power – has somehow only found enough evidence to indict two anti-Catholic attackers over the last three years. And the Department of Justice has still failed to prosecute even a single case.   Why?   Why this unfathomable level of inaction from the nation’s top investigative and law enforcement agencies?   Think back to just a couple weeks ago.   In a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Attorney General Merrick Garland testified that the FBI struggles to catch anti-Catholic criminals because they “commit their crimes at night.”   On its face, that’s a pathetic excuse.   Now, it’s really time to find out if Merrick Garland’s words hold water.   According to Ledyard police, security cameras captured key details of this weekend’s attack – including the man’s face, thinning hair on his head, a “distinctive beard with no mustache,” a military-style backpack, and the crowbar he used to break into locked rooms throughout the church.   Let’s see if the FBI has better luck this time.   I’m not holding out hope.   Because the truth is, the Biden administration is deliberately ignoring anti-Catholic violence because it doesn’t fit their political agenda – specifically their agenda to promote abortion on demand up to the moment of birth.   That inaction sends a clear message to anti-Catholic criminals: “If you loot, vandalize, burn, or bomb Catholic Churches – there’s a good chance you’ll get away with it.”   And with 300 attacks since May 2020, violent crooks are obviously getting the message.    In times like this, it’s easy to feel hopeless.   But I believe that’s the wrong answer.   In fact, that’s the real reason the Biden administration is acting this way to begin with.    They want pro-life Catholics to feel discouraged and simply give up. They want you and me to stop pushing for life, marriage, religious freedom, and the other truths of our faith that they reject.   So, what should you and I do instead in the face of so much violence and hatred for Catholics like us?    Don’t give in to hopelessness.   And don’t give up.    Keep fighting for our right to live out the truths of our faith in public life, whether the President of the United States agrees with us or not.   And above all, please continue to pray to our Lord and our Lady in these trying times.   Brian Birch, President, catholicvote.org   P.S. Every day, CatholicVote is fighting in the trenches in Washington, D.C. and around the country on your behalf – changing hearts and minds, influencing public policy, winning elections, and so much more.   No matter how bleak the future may look, we’re not giving up hope for our country or our Church.   Because we know that Christ has already won the ultimate victory, and everything we do flows from that.