Church Burnings in America

By Cliff Kincaid

September 16, 2024

Since the FBI was caught with a memo authorizing surveillance of traditional Catholics and did in fact stage an armed arrest of a peaceful pro-life Catholic father in Pennsylvania, permit me to speculate about the cause of the fire which devastated Saint Anthony’s Parish rectory in heavily Catholic Emmitsburg, Maryland, on August 30. News reports blame an “accident” of some sort but no official cause (with evidence) has been brought to my attention.

I was told by one of the priests who escaped the fire that they were considering the installation of security cameras before the incident occurred.

I regard the fire, which seriously injured a Catholic priest, to be suspicious because the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has been so alarmed by anti-Catholic activities that it issued a report on the subject. It found that, “At least 346 incidents have occurred across 44 states and the District of Columbia since May 2020. Incidents include arson, statues beheaded, limbs cut, smashed, and painted, gravestones defaced with swastikas and anti-Catholic language and American flags next to them burned, and other destruction and vandalism.”

Catholic churches in Washington, D.C. lock their doors and, in one case, had a “poor box” full of donations for the poor carted away by a “homeless” man. The incident was caught on a security camera but the local police say they cannot locate the offender. Lunatics sometimes invade the church services and police have been called. During the George Floyd riots, the sign in front of one church was damaged. Much of this may be ordinary criminals committing crimes.

Emmitsburg, Maryland, is not a big city but is the home to the shrine associated with Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American-born Catholic Saint and a strong pro-life advocate. Mother Seton Catholic School is also in Emmitsburg.

In terms of national and even global issues, the message behind abortion, which has taken more than 60 million lives in America, is that children are an obstacle to women’s progress and achievement. However, in an essay on Elizabeth Ann Seton, Carrie Gress writes, “Contrary to the belief today that children hinder a woman’s success, Elizabeth never saw her children as an obstacle. Her remarkable work was largely motivated by the necessity of caring for them. Her children were what drove her efforts, not what stymied them.”

Anti-Christian Bigotry

The fire at the Saint Anthony Shrine may turn out to be a real accident, because of human error, but the USCCB report suggests that we should be skeptical. Its report “excludes incidents where circumstances suggest a motive other than hostility toward the Church.” This means anti-Catholic activities stemming from ideological motivation is on the rise, obviously because the church officially stands against abortion and transgender ideology, aspects of the prevailing sentiment of Cultural Marxism driving the policies of the Democratic Party and federal government institutions.

In terms of the latter, the chief culprit is the FBI, whose director Christopher Wray couldn’t figure out whether President Trump was injured by a bullet on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, during the assassination attempt.

Now, Melania Trump has spoken out, saying “The attempt to end my husband’s life was a horrible, distressing experience” and that “the silence around it feels heavy.” She added, “I can’t help but wonder, why didn’t law enforcement officials arrest the shooter before the speech? There is definitely more to the story and we need to uncover the truth.”

The truth may be that the FBI had a role in the assassination plot.

Mrs. Trump, in another video, accurately describes the armed FBI raid on her husband’s Florida home that resulted in agents searching through her underwear drawer as a “warning to all Americans.” She said, “I never imagined my privacy would be invaded by the government here in America. The FBI raided my home in Florida and searched through my personal belongings.”

She added, “This is not just my story, it serves as a warning to all Americans, a reminder that our freedom and rights must be respected.”

When the former president and his wife are targets, you know the FBI role in attacking and burning churches can’t be ruled out.

Arresting Pro-Lifers

Catholics have always been targets of discrimination but today’s anti-Catholic bias is different, having been integrated into the activities of the FBI against traditionalists. The FBI produced an 11-page memo on its monitoring of Catholics. Mark Houck, a Catholic father of seven children, was arrested at gunpoint by dozens of FBI agents in front of his weeping children for allegedly violating a federal law restricting pro-life protests. (He was acquitted).

A House report summarizes how the FBI has categorized “certain Catholic Americans” as potential domestic terrorists.

The fire that resulted in $400,000 of damage to the Catholic rectory in Emmitsburg, Maryland, is the latest example of destruction that public officials tend to blame on human error or even local criminals and juveniles. But when the FBI has already been caught engaging in criminal activities in violation of the Constitution, actual attacks on churches through surrogates or agents of influence can’ be ruled out.

In North Beach, Maryland, the sanctuary was vandalized, with a crucifix and stained-glass window damaged. A tabernacle was stolen from St. John the Evangelist church in Hydes, Maryland. These are a few examples from Maryland alone.

Perhaps local criminals carried out the crimes, but I am suspicious about that as well. FBI placement of pipe bombs near the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Republican National Committee (RNC) on January 5, 2021, has not been ruled out. They may have been designed to make the ‘insurrection,” in which unarmed Trump supporters were escorted into the Capitol, look dangerous. In this confrontation, military vet and Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt was murdered in cold blood.

If the FBI or its agents planted those bombs for nefarious purposes, carrying out arson and other attacks on churches cannot be ruled out. There is a Christian revival in the United States that includes Catholics and non-Catholics which threatens the power and the shady operations of the FBI and other federal institutions.

For example, Catholic groups have announced support for the 32nd Annual International Week of Prayer and Fasting, October 12-20, in the Washington, D.C area. Under the call, “Become the Change that Will Change the World,” a series of talks and events will take place to help people “overcome the warfare experienced in our families and in our communities.”

One topic, “Euthanasia: Coming to a Hospital or Nursing Home Near You,” concerns a movement started by billionaire George Soros, known as the Project on Death in America, “to help transform the experience of dying in the United States.”

Silence and Intimidation

Since the FBI has tried to justify surveillance and arrest of Catholics, with an 11-page memo identifying targets by name, the next phase could be silencing them by force if necessary. Will Catholics be intimidated into thinking there is no federal attempt to destroy their ability to organize against the Deep State?

The anti-communist pope, John Paul II, was the target of an assassination attempt orchestrated by the Russian KGB. He had promised a Culture of Life to replace global communism.

I had the opportunity of once interviewing the late Vatican insider Malachi Martin, who wrote penetrating books about the Catholic Church entitled The Jesuits and The Keys of This Blood. He believed that Mikhail Gorbachev, who presided over the “restructuring” of the old Soviet Union, never gave up on Marxism-Leninism but adopted the viewpoint of the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci that a worldwide communist state could only be achieved gradually. It was to be a “revolution by infiltration.”

He said, “Liberation Theology was a perfectly faithful exercise of Gramsci’s principles.” Martin wrote that “The most powerful religious orders of the Roman Church—Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans, Maryknollers — all committed themselves to Liberation Theology.”

Malachi Martin’s book examined this conflict on a global level, writing about how Pope John Paul II had worked closely with the Reagan administration in opposition to communism and the global population control movement. He once complained that a U.N. conference on population issues was designed to “destroy the family” and was the “snare of the devil.”

Historic Catholic teaching about the value of human life and the Christian obligation to expose and defeat Satan and his demonic influences is what motivates the traditional Catholics being targeted by the FBI.

E-Mail Cliff Kincaid: kincaid@comcast.net