Across the world, hate crimes against Christians have seen a radical uptick in the past several years. Europe has experienced a rapid increase in reported hate crimes against Christians, mostly vandalism, but also violence, threats and arson between 2021 to 2023. In 2021 there were 519 incidents, 748 in 2022 and a whopping 2,444 in 2023, according to the OIDAC (Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe). Arson attacks deemed hate crimes saw a concurrent rise from 60 to 105 in Europe between 2022 and 2023 according to the same group. Germany had 37 arson cases, France and Italy experienced 16, and the UK saw nine.
The body said hate crimes in Europe in 2023 were “perpetrated by radicalised members of ideological, political, or religious groups that follow an anti-Christian narrative” The report concluded that, “In the case of anti-Christian hate crimes, our research shows that one of the main sources of aggression are radicalised members of extreme political groups, with a majority of cases coming from far-left political groups, such as Antifa, radical feminists, or LGBTQI groups. Furthermore, we have documented attacks by radical individuals from far-right groups, satanist groups, and radical Islamist groups.”1)
To repeat, Italy, with a population of 59 million, and France, with a population of 68 million suffered 16 arson hate crimes apiece in 2023. By comparison, Canada, with a population of 40 million, saw 24 arson attacks labelled as hate crimes between 2021 and 2023, according to conservative numbers reported by Terry Reigh of CBC news 2) or over 85 according to other investigations by the Catholic Civil Rights League. In contrast, between Jan. 1, 2019 to May 2021 Canada saw 14 fires deliberately set against churches, according to Reith.
The motives behind the Canadian church fires are not completely understood. In the Canadian cases where charges have been laid, police say no clear motive has been established. The locations of a majority of the fires are suggestive. Fourteen fires took place on reserves and First Nations and 13 were in small or rural towns, according to Reith. Catholic churches represent about half of the total number of fires, but there were also fires at evangelical Christian, United and Anglican properties.
Reith reports popular opinion is that the fires reflect anger among First Nations people over the discovery in 2021 at the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation near Kamloops, B.C., 215 anomalies in the ground that suggested unmarked graves. First Nations leaders there said they believed they were unmarked graves belonging to Indigenous children forced to attend the school. To this point no bodies have been unearthed in any excavations done at any residential school, a point that finally began to be made in 2024 in Canada by the National Post and in American outlets such as the Federalist, the National Review, and Daily Wire. However, the media reported similar findings at other residential schools in the coming weeks and the story took off like, well, like a brushfire.
The Catholic Civil Rights League has tabulated a much higher number of over 85 fires set against Catholic churches since 2021. The organization’s president Phil Horgan connects the dots between the reporting on Kamloops and the outbreak of arson, saying “ill-advised comments by public officials, particularly Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and speculation-driven narratives have created an environment where crimes against Catholics are societally tolerated and justified.”3)
Trudeau said on July 2, 2021, “I understand the anger that’s out there against the federal government, against institutions like the Catholic Church. It is real and it’s fully understandable, given the shameful history that we are all becoming more and more aware of and engaging ourselves to do better as Canadians.”4)
Trudeau also condemned the crimes being committed saying, “It is unacceptable and wrong that acts of vandalism and arson are being seen across the country, including against Catholic churches.”
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney went further, condemning the fires as “an attack on Canadian values” and “cowardly,” and pledged money to protect Christians.5)
Trudeau thereafter ordered the Peace Tower flag to be lowered to half-mast for 161 days, providing $3.1 million for a national Residential Schools Student Death Register, and allocating $238.8 million for a Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support Fund.
Following his comments, the special interlocutor assigned to the Kamloops criminal case asked Parliament to make “denialism” of criminal acts at residential schools illegal under the criminal code. Anyone who disagreed with this narrative could be subject to prosecution for a hate crime with a sentence of up to two years in prison. In Nov of 2023 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed support for the plan.
Horgan said he by no means intended to “overlook some elements of grave concern, which most Canadians have as Canadians are fair-minded people.”
“But this effort to portray these instances of missing children as an effort of cultural or other form of genocide I think is a huge overreach and is a slur against a lot of very good people who did incredible work over the past century,” said Horgan. “While we may have the franchise on turning the other cheek, I think on the other side we also have to try and ensure there is a better telling of the actual facts.”
We offer praise to the brave journalists who have dared to express a counternarrative.
Because the stakes are high. As Marc Eynaud, the French author of Who wants to harm Catholics? Fires, desecration: facts we don’t want to see said to Le Figaro in 2023: “Between the looting, the desecration, the fires, the physical attacks against priests or even the faithful, the media attacks also which contribute to legitimizing in some way the concrete violent acts… all this contributes to the same more or less conscious objective: to eradicate Christianity.” 5)
1) Heather Tomlinson, “Deliberate arson attacks on churches are part of a wider increase in hate crimes against Christians. But who is to blame? CBC News, Jan 10, 2024.
2) Terry Reith, “At least 33 Canadian churches have burned to the ground since May 2021. So far, 24 are confirmed arsons,”CBC News, Jan 10, 2024.
3) “Church burnings in Canada tied to unproven discovery of unmarked graves at residential schools,” Catholic News Service, January 18, 2024.
4) “Church burnings in Canada tied to unproven discovery of unmarked graves at residential schools,” Catholic News Service, January 18, 2024.
5) Andrew Miller, “If anti-Christian terrorists can destroy Canada’s churches, the nation’s last connection to its long history with God will be severed,” The Trumpet, August 17, 2021.
5) Aziliz Le Corre, Marc Eynaud : «Derrière les attunes contre les églises, il y a une volonté de s’en prendre au christianisme», Le Figaro, April 17, 2023.
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