On the morning of February 2, the principal of Holy Innocents Catholic School, Cyril Cruz, entered the school hall with her son and found it vandalized. Statues, including one from 1958 of the Virgin Mary, had been smashed to pieces and thrown to the floor. Food was found scattered on the floor, audio and music equipment had been broken, and the Tabernacle, a sacred object for Catholics as it holds the Eucharist, had been thrown to the floor. Someone had attempted to pry the doors of the Tabernacle open.
This was not just a school hall; Mass was offered in this hall for the children and staff of Holy Innocents, a K-12 school in Long Beach, California. Items reserved for the Mass and other Catholic rites were kept there, and authorities reported that some items had been stolen. It is estimated that the damages cost about $100,000, and a GoFundMe was quickly set up to help with repairs.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has reported at least 410 incidents of vandalism against Catholic churches since 2020. “Incidents include arson, statues being beheaded, limbs cut, smashed, and painted, gravestones defaced with swastikas and anti-Catholic language.” The Family Research Council has found that in 2024, there were 415 hostile incidents against 383 Christian churches, a jump from 50 incidents in 2018.
It’s not just Christian communities being affected by violent acts. In 2024, there were 1,700 violent acts committed against Jewish synagogues. Anti-Muslim violence has also been recorded.
With the recent Holy Innocents vandalism, and as I myself am a Catholic, I’ve begun to wonder whether or not anti-religious violence is truly on the rise. If it is, can the government do anything about it? The First Amendment of the Constitution guarantees us the freedom to practice our religion, but that does not mean that our neighbors necessarily agree.
We’re living in a time of extreme division, not just between the two political parties, but between family and friends as well. I believe that acts of violence toward places of worship, which should be safe spaces, just rock the boat further. Community is important, and when one’s community is under threat, it can be disheartening and upsetting.
The Catholic Student Center at my college has been a place of refuge for me, from my studies and from my anxieties, and a place that I’m grateful to call my second home. Even amidst all the division in the outside world, the Catholic student community has continued to come together each week to make memories and care for one another. I believe that we, as a whole society, need to find those precious pockets of connection with one another and continue to maintain them. I also believe that anti-religious violence is a symptom of a hurting society, one that needs healing. If we can start to care for our neighbors and for one another, change can actually begin to happen.
The day after the Holy Innocents vandalization, a reparation Mass was offered by the Bishop of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, Marc Trudeau. He remarked, “It takes time to desecrate a place, but God’s blessing is more powerful than that.”