CV NEWS FEED // Vandals and arsonists have attacked nearly 100 Christian churches across Canada in the two and a half years since activists first popularized the now-debunked claim that there are mass graves of indigenous children under Catholic schools.
Drea Humphrey of the Toronto-based Rebel News reported that “at least 96 churches have now been burned, vandalized or destroyed in Canada since the spring of 2021.” While the attacked churches represented multiple Christian denominations, most of them were Catholic.
At one point, Calgary – the country’s third-largest city – was “seeing 10 churches go up in flames in a single day,” Humphrey added. The Rebel News reporter and hostess noted that vandals were
smearing phrases like “Where are the children” and “If you hurt and/or kill kids, [you] should be burned alive” on church walls
[This] made it clear: Christian places of worship in Canada are under attack.
“Perhaps equally as shocking were the political forces that offered justifications for the Christophobic attacks,” she continued:
Such as the country’s so-called Catholic Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who stated he understood the anger “against institutions like the Catholic Church,” while refusing to call the mass church attacks out for what they are: acts of hate.
As Humphrey explained, the apparent catalyst of the spike in anti-Catholic violence in America’s northern neighbor came following a press release put out by Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation (Kamloops Indian Band) in late May 2021.
“This past weekend, with the help of a ground penetrating radar specialist, the stark truth of the preliminary findings came to light – the confirmation of the remains of 215 children who were students of the Kamloops Indian Residential School,” it stated.
“The Kamloops Industrial School (later known as the Kamloops Indian Residential School) was opened, under Roman Catholic administration, in 1890,” the release later noted.
Humphrey has been following the story since it first broke. A few weeks after the initial Kamloops press release, she wrote:
The heartbreaking story quickly made front-page news across the world. Canada lowered its flags to half-mast to stand in solidarity with the First Nations community. But some of the stories that spread far and wide were not based on facts, even when stated by sources with great influence such as politicians and mainstream media.
For example, how were the remains buried? Is the discovery a mass grave, or a cemetery that had been lost in time? How was the precise number of the remains of 215 children arrived at with the specified technology, and will a thorough investigation be done to help determine the cause of death of those who were forgotten beneath the soil?
Over two years later, Humphrey’s suspicions were all but confirmed. As a result of the release of more information, the current general consensus among observers is that the story was most likely a hoax.
>> ‘MASS GRAVES’ FOUND TO BE LIKELY A HOAX <<
The New York Post indicated last summer that “a series of recent excavations at suspected sites has turned up no human remains.”
As CatholicVote reported on September 1, 2023:
“I don’t like to use the word hoax because it’s too strong but there are also too many falsehoods circulating about this issue with no evidence,” Jacques Rouillard of the Department of History at the Université de Montréal told The Post.
…
A number of Catholic and Catholic-sympathetic commentators and reporters responded to the revelation that the story appears to be false this week. Many of them noted the mass violence against Catholic properties that took place amid the fervor of anti-Catholicism that came with the story starting in 2021.
