OPINION:
For reasons known only to them, Israeli forces attacked Holy Family, the only Roman Catholic parish in the Gaza Strip, about a week ago. They killed three people and wounded several others.
The good news is that President Trump immediately extracted a (sort of) apology from Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put out the following bland statement: “Israel deeply regrets that stray ammunition hit Gaza’s Holy Family Church. Every innocent life lost is a tragedy.” Stray ammunition, you say?
In December 2023, a woman and her daughter on the property of Holy Family were killed by an Israeli sniper. In October 2023, an Israeli rocket struck the Anglican-run Christian Al-Ahli Arab Hospital. That same month, an Israeli airstrike killed 18 civilians near the Church of Saint Porphyrius. That seems like a lot of stray ammunition.
Attacks on churches are particularly barbaric.
Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, also thinks so. In the wake of what was initially thought to be arson at the ancient Church of St. George in Gaza, he offered this statement: “One thing that we strongly agree on is that any desecration to a holy place — it doesn’t matter whether it’s a church, a mosque or a synagogue — it’s unacceptable. To commit an act of sacrilege by desecrating a place that is supposed to be a place of worship, it is an act of terror, and it is a crime. There should be consequences, and it should be harsh consequences because it is one of the last bastions of our civilization, the places where we worship. … People need to pay a price for doing something that destroys that which belongs, not just to other people, but that which belongs to God. That is a sacrilege. It’s against the Holy.”
The Israelis are egregious but not alone.
CatholicVote said there have been more than 500 attacks on Catholic churches in the United States since May 2020, including acts of arson that damaged or destroyed historic churches, spray-painting and graffiti of satanic and pro-abortion messages, rocks and bricks thrown through windows, and statues destroyed (often with heads cut off). It will not surprise you that attacks increased after the draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade leaked in May 2022. The vast majority have involved only property destruction, not theft, which should tell you what the perpetrators are all about.
The good news is that the police are foursquare with Mr. Huckabee and have prioritized catching these terrorists. Just kidding. CatholicVote found evidence of an arrest in connection with an attack against a church in only about 30% of cases.
Nor is the United States alone. Dozens of Catholic churches in Canada have been burned to the ground in the past few years. In France, there have been hundreds of attacks on Catholic churches every year for a decade or so. But sure, the burning of the Cathedral of Notre Dame was an accident, just as the subsequent fire at St. Sulpice, the third-largest Catholic church in Paris, was an accident, just as the killings at Holy Family were an accident.
Sometimes, though, the arson is obviously intentional, especially when it is cultural. At some point, the French decided that the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games really needed a replay of the “Last Supper” in drag. When called out on that, those in charge said they did not intend to offend anyone. It was just an accident.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times. He has never burned down a church or killed someone accidentally.
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