Sen. Marco Rubio, R-FL, wrote to President Joe Biden urging him to condemn the hundreds of violent attacks on the country’s Catholic churches in the past few years.
“I write with regard to the dramatic increase in attacks on Catholic churches across America,” Rubio began his letter to the president.
“These religiously motivated attacks seldom result in any consequences for offenders and are part of a larger trend of fanatical activists targeting religious institutions,” the senator continued.
He demanded that Biden and his administration “speak out on the growing number of attacks on Catholic churches and make investigating, and fully prosecuting, these incidents an urgent priority.”
Last week marked the 400th time a Catholic church had been attacked since 2020. As of Tuesday afternoon, three attacks occurred since – making for a total of 13 attacks this calendar year.
Rubio stated that “[142] of the attacks occurred in 2020 and 2021.” He noted that the violence “further skyrocketed” following the 2022 leak of the Dobbs decision, with 143 attacks taking place in that year alone.
“These assaults continued into 2023 as well, with more than 100 attacks,” the Florida Republican added.
“These attacks are not random nor are they the result of a temporary lapse in judgment by perpetrators,” Rubio emphasized: “They are motivated by a deep and abiding animosity towards religious institutions and people of faith.”
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“Anyone who thinks or argues otherwise should consider the following examples,” Rubio continued:
a woman setting fire to a statue of the Virgin Mary, an individual beheading a statue of the baby Jesus, and a perpetrator cutting the hands off of a statue of Jesus. These horrific descriptions only cover a portion of incidents in New York, a hotspot for anti-Catholic aggression. Other examples include a priest being attacked with a machete, a 249-year-old church being set on fire and nearly fully destroyed, and, in Florida, a man crashed a van into a Catholic church and then set it on fire with people inside.
“The First Amendment explicitly protects each individual’s right to freely exercise his or her religious beliefs,” Rubio stressed.
He wrote that “the wave of attacks against Catholics suggests that many activists would like countless Americans to abandon their genuine religious faith and submit to a godless, progressive pseudo-religion.”
“Irrespective of any value judgment on the ends of that goal, the means have proven to be anti-First Amendment, anti-American, and violent,” the senator added.
“I demand you condemn the growing number of attacks on Catholic churches and make combatting these incidents an urgent priority for your administration by prosecuting each and every offender to the fullest extent of the law,” Rubio concluded.
LifeNews Note: Joshua Mercer writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.
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