Anti-Catholic Violence On The International Day Commemorating The Victims Of Violence Against Religion
On May 27, 2021, the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc band held a press conference to announce that a group of archeologists had found a cemetery with 200 unmarked graves that contained the remains of children abused and killed at the now-closed Kamloops Indian Residential School in Canada’s British Columbia. The school had been run by the Catholic Church. The world was shocked by the announcement that received widespread press coverage.
The “graves” were found using a geophysical technique called ground penetrating radar (GPR). GPR detects layering in soil profiles that sometimes can be used to locate anomalous features beneath the surface. GPR frequently is used to locate buried utilities, to locate mineral and oil deposits; structural assessments in engineering building foundations, and in forensics to locate buried remains of murdered people. GPR is useful in identifying sub-surface anomalies, anomalies that must then be “ground-truthed” by excavation to confirm the exact nature of the identified features.
The Kamloops Indian Residential School was one of about 130 church-run schools set up by the Canadian government in the 19th century to assimilate native populations into Canadian culture. The Kamloops School closed in 1978. Thousands of students are believed to have died at the 130 schools, mostly from disease. It was common practice to bury any students that died at the schools, who were not claimed by their families, in cemeteries located at the schools.
Human remains have been exhumed from several such cemeteries, none of which show signs of physical abuse. No human remains have been found at the Kamloops Indian Residential School site. No ground-truthing has been done, a requirement to properly interpret the GPR data, because the tribe has refused to excavate any of the anomalies.
Re-evaluation of the GPR records in 2023 by independent experts suggests that the spacing of the anomalies are too far apart for a typical cemetery and were more consistent with spacing of root balls of trees in an orchard. Historic photographs show that an apple orchard was located at the site. The 2023 study concluded that the data were consistent with the site being a former apple orchard, not a cemetery. Those results have received little press coverage.
Following the May 27, 2021, press conference, there have been at least 272 “retaliatory” attacks on Catholic churches across 43 states in the United States and the District of Columbia. The incidents include arson, statues being beheaded, limbs being cut off statues, statues being smashed or painted, and other acts of vandalism.
China
North America is not the only place where anti-Catholic violence occurs. In May 2022, Hong Kong authorities arrested 90-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen based on his relationship as a trustee of the 612 Humanitarian Fund, an organization that provided financial and legal aid to those who were arrested during demonstrations in 2019 against a bill requiring political detainees in Hong Kong to be sent to the mainland for trial. The retired bishop of Hong Kong is a courageously outspoken advocate for religious freedom, democracy, and human rights. Hong Kong, once a free and prosperous international financial center, thanks to a treaty signed between the United Kingdom and China in 1984, is now subject to the oppression of the Chinese Communist Party and is devolving into an increasingly repressive society where no one resisting government tyranny is safe, including religious leaders like Cardinal Zen.
It appears that Cardinal Zen has not been indicted under Hong Kong’s national security law, a violation of which could have earned him life imprisonment. Instead, his alleged “crime” was the failure to properly register the 612 Fund as an association.
Meanwhile Jimmy Lai, a high-profile Catholic convert and pro-democracy businessman, has pleaded not guilty to national-security charges and will face a court panel of three judges handpicked by the Hong Kong government, under sinister laws introduced by Beijing that moved national-security cases away from Hong Kong’s long-established jury trial system.
While all of this was going on, the Vatican announced the renewal of its deal with Beijing that gives the Communist Party the authority to nominate Bishops.
Nicaragua
On August 19, 2022, Bishop Rolando Álvarez of the Diocese of Matagalpa in Nicaragua was taken by police and thrown into jail. This outrageous act – which led to protests by Nicaraguans throughout the Americas – is the latest attack on the Church by the Ortega government. The police have arrested seven other priests on bogus charges ranging from child abuse to disturbing the public order. Another Catholic priest, Father Uriel Vallejos, went into hiding after the police raided his parish’s radio station and surrounded his residence for several days. A radio station managed by Father Vallejos was among several Catholic television and radio channels that have been shut down by the government.
Last summer, Ortega’s government outlawed the missionary order founded by Mother Teresa and expelled the order’s religious sisters from the country. Their exile followed the expulsion in March 2022 of the Vatican’s envoy to Nicaragua, Archbishop Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag.
Nigeria
Religious sisters, seminarians, and priests in Nigeria, together with their Protestant fellow Christians, are under constant danger of kidnapping and torture. Last year, unknown gunmen abducted four nuns in Nigeria’s Imo state. Thankfully they were released two days later. The abduction happened while the sisters were on their way to Mass. Aid to the Church in Need reports that 20 Nigerian priests have been kidnapped since the beginning of 2022. Three of those priests have been killed.
Last summer, gunmen attacked St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Owo, Nigeria, killing at least 40 people and injuring scores more with bullets and explosives. The assailants, some of whom sat through the Mass pretending to be worshippers, sprang into action toward the end of the service, setting off explosives and firing bullets into the congregation.
Most recently, on August 10, 2023, Muslim Fulani herdsmen again attacked Ngban, a village in Benue State. This was the same village where Sacred Heart Udei Parish was attached by Fulani during Good Friday services, killing 43 people.
These atrocities were even more alarming because it marked the spread of religious violence — which plagues the middle stretch of the country, where Islamic northern Nigeria meets the Christian south — to a southern region previously relatively safe from such horrors. Nigeria is not only Africa’s most populous and highly developed country but also one of its most religiously unstable. If it descends into a war of religion, the consequences for the whole of Africa are unthinkable.
This essay is not intended to be an exhaustive listing of violence against Catholics. Religion, especially Christianity, has always been a target for tyrants and thugs. Today is no different. As Catholics, we must pray for the persecuted. As Americans, we must demand that our president stand up to religious persecutors in defense of religious freedom, especially among persecuted populations. If he continues to neglect his duty, as shown by the seeming indifference of the State Department, he will be endangering the lives and prosperity of people all over the world.
May God Bless You and Grant You His Peace!
Dr. Terry Rees
Superior General/Executive Director
Order of St. John Paul II
916-896-1327 (office)
916-687-1266 (mobile)
tfrees@sjp2.org
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