© Courtesy of St. Teresa of Calcutta ParishAn explosive device detonates at St. Teresa of Calcutta Parish in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, Tuesday, May 6, 2025.
Police said a man was seen on surveillance video lighting an explosive on an altar inside a Catholic church, WFMZ reported. The priest of St. Teresa of Calcutta Church said the suspect placed a quarter stick of dynamite on the altar, which exploded and caused thousands of dollars in damage.
"I don't know what was going through his head or his mind," Rev. Kevin Gallagher told WFMZ. "But it was something he had planned out."
So far in 2025, there have been 22 alleged attacks on Catholic churches.
Spike in attacks traced back to 2020 unrest
CatholicVote tracked each of the 500 incidents dating back to May 28, 2020. That's when protests and riots erupted nationwide over the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis.
During one riot, someone threw bottles of flammable fluid into the pews of the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis, which started a fire. An investigation didn't result in any arrests.
As the unrest continued that summer, churches from New York to California were vandalized with graffiti, property damage, statue beheadings, fires and theft.
Attacks following overturn of Roe v. Wade
In 2022, after the Supreme Court ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade, dozens of churches were attacked by abortion rights activists.
In May 2022, someone vandalized the Archdiocese of Miami's Respect Life Office.
"If abortions aren't safe, then neither are you" was written on the building alongside "Jane's Revenge." Jane's Revenge is an abortion-rights group that uses violent and illegal methods to target places and organizations it sees as opposing abortion access.
Months later, in December 2022, Fox News reported on a case out of Omaha, Nebraska, in which Jane's Revenge allegedly sent a threatening letter to a Catholic-affiliated center and local church.
"If our right to abortion in Bellevue is taken away due to the attempt to pass an abortion ban and it gets passed, we will shoot up your Newman Center with our new AR-14 rifles. Sincerely, Jane's Revenge," the note said. The note was found outside the John Paul II Newman Center near the University of Nebraska-Omaha's Scott Campus.
Federal response and concerns over prosecution
CatholicVote said it sent numerous letters to former President Joe Biden's Department of Justice, asking then-Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the attacks.
During a press briefing on May 9, 2022, then-press secretary Jen Psaki said, "We have seen [vandalism] at Catholic churches. That's unacceptable. The President does not support that." Psaki added, "We have seen it at some conservative organizations. That — we don't support that...We know the passion. We understand the passion. We understand the concern. But what the President's position is is that that should be peaceful — the protests."
According to the faith advocacy group, in June 2022, the Department of Homeland Security warned Catholic bishops of credible threats against churches and clergy following the Roe v. Wade decision. A federal terrorism bulletin cautioned that faith-based institutions could be targeted for violence.
In February, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at eradicating "anti-Christian bias."
The executive order created a task force to address alleged "anti-Christian" policies, prosecute related crimes and recommend actions to safeguard religious freedom.
Attacks on Catholic churches have occurred in 43 states and Washington, D.C., with the highest numbers reported in California, New York and Pennsylvania. Other heavily affected states include Florida, Texas, New Jersey, Ohio, Colorado, Oregon and Massachusetts.
CatholicVote found that suspects have been arrested in about 30% of the cases.
Reader Comments
IMO, it's not just a ridiculous notion to consider a man (like the pope or an Imam) as infallible, but is contrary to basic entry level Christianity (I can't speak much for Islam); the first step in Christianity being to admit you are a sinner and repent. It is my understanding that if you can't admit you are a sinner, then you can't take the first and most important step into repentance, and thereby Christianity. Those are simply the semantics, and are unavoidable.
If you can't admit you're a sinner, then you can't proclaim you are a Christian either. That's just the lobby of Christianity, it's not one of the finer details. The entirety of the religion is built on the premise that men are sinners by nature, and all fall short of the glory of God.
Fun fact: Sin is an archery term for anything that isn't a bullseye...or so I was taught.
Anyway, institutionalized government religion is very un-American. Not much could be more un-American than that, and is specifically taught to us a central reason for people sailing away from Europe in the first place, true or not.
I wonder if this subject (Trump's asserting Christians a protected status like blacks and queers) isn't related to or tethered to the eventuality of the world now having an American Pope. Will this unfold into something more sinister somewhere down the line? Is this more social engineering. Nazis were very Roman Catholic (Pope Benedict XVI even wore the "Brown-Shirt" uniform as a young man for a short time), and some have even framed WWII as a war against that ideology. It is yet another potential parallel between the present USA and Nazi Germany.
I doubt there is the stomach for religion here in America, but IDK. It could be cultivated again, like back in the 70's and 80's where fake Jesus and televangelism was mainstream. Maybe they are testing the water.
I'm far from being an expert in Islam matters, but AFAIK this is one reason for the split between Sunni and Shia. While the Sunni fraction preaches obedience to clerical authorities under any circumstances, the Shia insist on personal responsibilty. Considering the Persians Palestinians are mostly Shia, no wonder the West, especially the Anglo-Saxons, hate them so much. Never heard of that - neither in my own "hobby archer" career, nor in any related fora. Perhaps a regional thing ... In former times the official church fulfilled to a large extend the role of the mass media - justifying the dominion of the ruling "elite". No need for such an organized religion anymore - it is replaced by outright and unbridled "statism", the religion of state worship.
Much of the text suffers from this treatment, and I noticed they do this with Native American Myths too, and make them sound very different than what I think the actual words intend to express. They always make it lean into mysticism as far as possible.
This frustrates me a lot, because the stories are often very powerful and interesting in their original tongue, but sound completely stupid when some hippie or priest, way too into their meta-physical magic BS, does the translation.
In the New Testament, The Greeks used the word "Hamartia," meaning "to miss the mark." So,I presume these two words, "Chata and Hamartia" is how the term was, or is, used in archery, and as an expression of how we are bound to not get it perfectly right every time, if ever, and if you ever did, that's divine and something to behold...give that man a Pabst Blue Ribbon...hang him from a tree is how we often treat such a person, instead. Not new.
I'm not actually sure where we get the English word "sin" from.
I think he word "angel" is also guilty of being a grossly misinterpreted Biblical Word. The hell if I know why they translate the word "Messenger" that way, except that it sounds more magical and fantastic when you use the word "angel."
I think it leads people into believing in comic-book style super-hero crap, rather than leading them to important answers to life's hard questions that would serve them better, and help us all be better Humans.
"Holy Prostitution" and sex cults depend on child sacrifice, because motherhood makes for bad and unproductive whores. Nothing has changed in this regard. The alter of Moloch is more sanitary and civilized these days, but it is the same thing.
If you want the temple whores to work, they can't be distracted and heart-softened with childbearing and maternal love. Temple whores and nurseries don't mix, generally (these days they sell fetuses, pedophilia and adrenochrome too). Also, once they have sacrificed their children, people are likely more psychologically locked in and committed (by guilt) to their whoredom and role as a carnival-ride in a hedonist sex culture.
Temple Whores are nothing new.
In the 60s, UK Prime Minister Harold Macmillan said there were two groups a government didnt tangle with: the Miners Union and the Catholic Church. The establishment smashed the miners in the miners' strike in 1984 and they thought they had smashed the Catholics with the 'all priests are paedophiles' mega hype on the global media. But they hadn't. Just look at the popularity of the Pope stories over the past month. The establishment hate the educated culture of the Catholics and jesuits etc.
Ha. Guy Faukes is probably the only honourable man that ever entered the House of Commons.