In a sign of things to come, arsonists have carried out a terror attack on an Irish church, entering it and setting fire to the altar.
Saints Peter and Paul church in Ballyduff, Co. Kerry was targeted by three young women who appeared to be in their 20s.
According to The Kerryman:
The incident happened on Friday evening when the church was still open to the public. It was believed to have been unoccupied when the trio entered, making their way to the altar before setting fire to the cloth covering it.
The rest of The Kerryman’s coverage is surreal, if not sarcastic. They write that ‘Detectives are still baffled by the motive behind the incident’ and the subheading calls it a ‘bizarre act of vandalism’.
It is not ‘bizarre’ at all.
Christianity is the most persecuted belief in the world, bar none. In recent years, Canada and even the United States have been hit by waves of anti Christian terror, with close to 100 churches being burned to the ground in Canada alone in the space of a year.
Without pointing fingers at anyone in particular, the past decade of anti Catholic propaganda in Ireland was always going to result in violence. We saw the beginnings of this during the Repeal referendum, when churches were invaded and covered in pro abortion paraphernalia. We saw recent incidents where political parties picketed Catholic churches, including the government themselves surrounding a Mass near to where this incident happened, after a sermon had dared to disagree with government policy on marriage.
Journalists and politicians must lower their tone towards the church or else this violence will continue to grow.
The church for its own part must speak out when political parties picket Mass, this does not happen in normal countries, much less ones that unconvincingly claim to have moved on from religion.
Recently, top level politicians held a rally outside Leinster House with a banner saying ‘No Nuns’ and ‘Full State Control’.
When rocks were thrown at a Galway Mosque in 2017, it was wall to wall news for days on end, there were no doubts about the apparent motive. The community were ‘terrified’, it was a ‘serious incident’. It was described as a ‘hate crime’.
When the government surrounds our churches during Mass, it is a hate crime too. When they hold rallies blaming us for their own inability to provide a health service, it is a hate crime. And when set our churches on fire, you better believe that it is a hate crime too.
