A Republican congressman is calling on the Justice Department to step up its fight against religious bigotry and to defend religious worship amid an uptick in anti-Catholic vandalism that has followed the protests and the violence in recent months.
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee sent a one-page letter to Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday, saying he was writing to “encourage the Department of Justice to protect religious freedom and combat religious discrimination” in the United States. Both men are Catholic.
“Since June there have been nearly a dozen reported attacks on Catholic Churches around the nation. These disturbing attacks range from arson to the beheading of a statue of the Virgin Mary,” Fleischmann wrote. “I find these attacks to be a disturbing trend, happening in multiple areas across the nation, including within my own congressional district.”
Fleischmann told the Washington Examiner that his concern was about intolerance directed toward members of any faith. “These people who would desecrate any house of worship — whether it is a Catholic church or any other house of worship — need to know that it won’t be tolerated. And I think it rises to the level of a hate crime,” he said.
When asked whether he wanted the Justice Department to speak out on the issue or to engage in an investigation, the congressman replied, “All of the above.”
“I would like to have a recognition that this problem exists, it persists, and sadly, it is not isolated to one city or one state,” Fleischmann told the Washington Examiner. “I think it needs to be looked at very carefully and addressed for the danger that it is.”
In July, a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary was decapitated at St. Stephen Catholic Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and it caught Fleischmann’s attention when Knoxville’s Catholic bishop tweeted about the beheading.
“A symbol of our faith, and the fact that someone would come on to the premises of a beautiful parish and commit such a heinous act, a heinous crime is very personally upsetting,” Fleischmann told a local outlet last month. “When we see these random acts of violence, especially against houses of worship, I think we all need to stand up and say this is wrong.”
Much of the violence has followed the protests and rioting that began after George Floyd, an unarmed black man, died in Minneapolis police custody after a white officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on his neck nearly nine minutes. The officers involved in detaining Floyd have been charged.
Multiple people were arrested in June over the vandalization of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, and a man was charged with vandalizing a Catholic cemetery at Providence College by painting swastikas and anti-Catholic slogans on gravestones.
Other incidents involving Catholic structures in July included protesters tearing down a statue of Franciscan priest and Spanish missionary Junipero Serra; a man ramming his minivan through the doors of Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Florida and then setting the lobby ablaze while a number of parishioners were inside preparing for morning Mass; a statue of the Virgin Mary being spray-painted as an “IDOL” outside a Catholic prep school in Queens, New York; the Big Mountain Jesus statue at White Mountain Resort in Montana being spray-painted and found holding a “BLM” flag; a Virgin Mary statue in front of St. Peter’s parish in Dorchester, Massachusetts, being burned; St. Joseph’s in New Haven being spray-painted with satanic and anarchic symbols; a statue of Jesus at Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Miami-Dade being beheaded; and a fire that severely damaged Mission San Gabriel Arcángel church in Los Angeles is being investigated as possible arson.
In August, a collection box was broken into and robbed at a Catholic church in Brooklyn, and firefighters believe that a blaze started at Sacred Heart Church in Weymouth was likely caused by a Molotov cocktail.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops condemned the vandalism last month, saying, “Our nation finds itself in an extraordinary hour of cultural conflict. The path forward must be through the compassion and understanding practiced and taught by Jesus and his Holy Mother. … We respond to confusion with understanding and to hatred with love.”
“In times of uncertainty, we naturally turn to religion for comfort and peace, something many Americans are seeking as we combat COVID-19,” Fleischmann wrote to Barr. “But these attacks add another level of distress for many across our nation.”
