Tag Archive for: Religious Hostility

FBI Raids Traditional Catholic Family’s Home over Son’s Memes

The Biden administration’s FBI is once again targeting faithful Catholic Americans by raiding a Catholic family’s home. According to a report from American Greatness, the Rufini family were “dragged out of their home at gunpoint, handcuffed and locked in a van” by FBI agents earlier this year.

According to Jeremiah Rufini, his 15-year-old son was targeted for posting allegedly “offensive” memes online and in social media group chats, prompting the FBI’s raid. Rufini also alleges that undercover FBI agents infiltrated “right wing” social media chat groups, befriended his son there, and convinced or “goaded” him to generate content which they could then target.

Rufini explained that his son, an altar boy and volunteer firefighter, stepped up to take care of his 93-year-old great-grandmother. The boy was not “raised with cell phones or unrestricted internet access” but his responsibility taking care of his great-grandmother necessitated cell phone use. “He spent a lot of time alone with nothing to do but wait and think and the cell phone became a welcome distraction,” Rufini explained. He added that his son’s “interests in history and theology led him down a rabbit hole where he was recruited into group chats targeting teenage traditionalist Catholics with extreme political content.” Rufini said he later found that the group chats his son was involved in were “closely monitored, and possibly operated by, FBI agents as part of an effort to investigate Traditional Catholics…”

He further noted, “Ironically, our legal troubles began when he had an attack of conscience and abruptly deleted all of his chat apps. He later told us that he felt using social media was a coping mechanism and it had been affecting his mood and ability to sleep.” The FBI’s investigation against the teenager, which his father categorized as “very disproportionate,” reportedly yielded a misdemeanor conviction for breach of peace, but cost the Rufini family over $20,000 in legal fees spent combating the U.S. Justice Department.

Arielle Del Turco, director of the Center for Religious Liberty at Family Research Council, commented to The Washington Stand, “From the way the Rufini family describes it, the FBI targeted their son on social media and undercover agents might have encouraged him to commit some sort of offense for which they could arrest him.” She explained, “This is unspeakably cruel to a minor, and it creates problems that were not naturally there. Federal authorities should never foment illicit activity just to confirm their own bias against Christians.” Del Turco added, “This is yet another example of the FBI’s bizarre series of attempts to catch traditional Catholics in some kind of wrongdoing.”

This follows a series of instances in which FBI agents and the Biden Justice Department have aggressively targeted conservative Catholic individuals or communities for harassment or investigation over the past two years. In September of 2022, for example, around two dozen heavily-armed FBI agents equipped with riot gear raided the home of Catholic pro-life advocate and father of seven Mark Houck, handcuffing him in front of his wife and children. Houck was accused of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act by physically assaulting a Planned Parenthood employee. At trial, Houck’s defense team demonstrated that the Planned Parenthood employee had actually violated the abortion business’s policies, left his post, and crossed the street to where Houck and his son were peacefully praying. After the Planned Parenthood employee began following the two and verbally harassing Houck’s son, Houck shoved the man. Houck was acquitted earlier this year.

In February 2023, a memo was leaked from the FBI’s field office in Richmond, Virginia, detailing plans for infiltrating and spying on Catholic parishes which celebrate the Tridentine Mass, sometimes called the Traditional Latin Mass. The memo labeled Tridentine Mass-goers potential “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists” and relied heavily on information from the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The SPLC classifies “radical traditional Catholics” as a hate group and places them on par with neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. Despite initial claims that the memo was the misguided product of only one FBI field office, later documents and testimony revealed that multiple FBI field offices had contributed to the creation of the memo, including FBI field offices on the West Coast which had already infiltrated and spied on traditional Catholic communities.

When asked, months later, if he considered “traditional” American Catholics to be extremists, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland responded in a Congressional hearing, “I have no idea what ‘traditional’ means here.” After being pressed repeatedly to clarify his position on traditional Catholics and repeatedly refusing to answer directly, Garland finally admitted, “Catholics are not extremists, no.” When asked if anyone in the FBI or Justice Department had been disciplined over the creation of the memo, Garland replied, “I don’t know.”

Additionally, the FBI and Justice Department have done little to investigate or prosecute hundreds of attacks against Catholic churches in the U.S. According to a report by advocacy group CatholicVote, nearly 400 Catholic churches have been attacked over the past three years, including 99 in 2023 alone. The attacks have ranged from vandalism and spray-painting to destruction of property and desecration of Catholic statues to firebombing and attempted arson. Attacks have taken place in 42 states and Washington, D.C. A fresh spate of attacks took place in Ohio in late September and early November, ahead of the referendum vote on Issue 1, which enshrined a “right” to abortion in the Buckeye State’s constitution. According to CatholicVote, arrests have been made in less than 25% of attacks on Catholic churches.

Del Turco commented, “The FBI’s resources could be more effectively allocated if they would stop pursing imaginary terrorist threats among Catholics. One would think there is enough crime in America to keep the FBI busy.” She added, “When the FBI’s hyper-fixation on Catholics is inexplicable in the natural, that may just mean it’s spiritual. Spiritual warfare is real, and it affects human events.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Anti-Christian Hate Crimes Spike in Europe

A new report is documenting a drastic rise in anti-Christian hate crimes across Europe. The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe (OIDAC Europe) published its annual report last week, detailing a 44% increase over the course of 2022 in social hostility towards and violent attacks against Christians as well as acts of vandalism and desecration against churches.

According to the report, 748 anti-Christian hate crimes were committed in Europe last year, 38 of which were violent physical attacks and three of which were murders. Arson attacks were also more common than in years past and churches were targeted for firebombings and vandalism, especially in France and Germany. In fact, arson attacks nearly doubled over the course of one year, rising from 60 attacks in 2021 to 106 in 2022.

The OIDAC Europe report noted that “there had been a surge of clear extremism-motivated attacks.” The majority of these attacks were committed by groups with far-left, satanic, Islamic, feminist, or LGBT affiliations. In comments to The Washington Stand, Irish Freedom Party founder and president Hermann Kelly said, “The increase in the number of anti-Christian hate crimes is truly shocking in a supposedly Christian continent. The presence of many millions of the Islamic faith which preaches hatred, domination, and annihilation of all non-Muslims has no doubt added greatly to the rise in anti-Christian violence.”

He added, “A second spike in the anti-Christian pincer movement is that of aggressive and militant secularism of the far Left. Incredibly, they find common allies and goals in the silencing of Christian public presence and influence in European society.”

In its report, OIDAC Europe also noted a growing movement to suppress religious liberty and criminalize Christian practices. In Ireland, for example, the government has been promoting what OIDAC called “Europe’s most extreme ‘hate speech’ bill.” The Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Act would shift the burden of proof to the accused, who would have to demonstrate that they did not intend to “spread hate.” The bill criminalizes private materials, such as memes on a phone or books on a shelf, and could potentially outlaw Christian teachings on such subjects as LGBT ideology.

The bill, if enacted, would also allow police officers to obtain warrants to investigate suspected “hate speech” without presenting any evidence to a court. Other European nations have also seen “hate speech” legislation weaponized against Christians: two Catholic bishops in Spain have been prosecuted for repeating the Catholic Church’s teachings on marriage and sexuality, numerous “street preachers” have been arrested in the U.K. for allegedly causing “distress” to those who disagreed with Christian teachings, and Finish parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen was charged with “War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity” for quoting Scripture.

Others have seen “hate speech” policies weaponized in areas like academia. In Ireland, schoolteacher Enoch Burke was dismissed from his post and eventually jailed for refusing to call a student by transgender pronouns. Welsh teacher Ben Dybowski was fired after being asked to share his Christian position on homosexuality and abortion during a confidential, mandatory diversity and gender awareness training session. U.K. teacher Joshua Sutcliffe was sacked for sharing his Christian views on marriage with students, and school chaplain Bernard Randall was dismissed for delivering a homily critical of the LGBT agenda.

Another area of concern is abortion “buffer zones,” designated areas outside of abortion facilities where prayer, protest, and pro-life counseling are legally prohibited. These “buffer zones” are becoming prevalent in Ireland, Germany, Spain, and the U.K. Last year, pro-life activist Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was arrested for silently praying outside an abortion facility in England. The Catholic woman held no rosary and did not speak aloud but simply stood in silence. She was arrested, tried, and acquitted, and then arrested again two weeks after the acquittal on the same charges.

Arielle Del Turco, director of the Center for Religious Liberty at Family Research Council, commented to The Washington Stand, “The preservation of religious freedom relies not just on good laws and legal victories, but also on cultural support. Sadly, we are looking at plummeting cultural support for the rights of Christians in the West and a rise of intolerance against the Christian faith, particularly when that faith is proclaimed boldly in the public square. This is symptomatic of the larger trend of secularization. As culture becomes increasingly secular, people understand and value it less. Christian beliefs about the human body, sexual ethics, or the exclusivity of Christ can be seen as offensive or even oppressive.”

She further noted, “Over time, this leads to greater erosion of religious freedom and cultural support for Christians simply wanting to live out their faith or express their beliefs.”

In its conclusion, the OIDAC Europe report stated, “As freedom of thought, conscience, and religion is a cornerstone for free and democratic societies, we hope that states will not compromise on the protection of these fundamental rights, and thus ensure an open and peaceful climate in our societies.” Hermann Kelly forcefully added, “Only a return to Christian faith, family, fecundity, and education will give culturally and demographically dying Europe the chance of a future.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: The ‘Responsibility Liberation’: Why Men Need to be Part of the Pro-Life Effort

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Dozens of Major Corporations Have Abysmal Protections for Free Speech, Religion: Study

Dozens of major corporations lack adequate protections for free speech and religion even as several companies have improved since last year, a new study suggests.

The study was conducted in partnership with the investment technology service Inspire Insight, which provides faith-based investing data and ratings to thousands of institutions.

Only two of the 75 companies examined had scored over 25 in their respect for speech and religion. ADF contends that “millions of everyday Americans are at risk of cancelation or punishment for their views.”

The bottom five companies when it comes to respecting free speech and religious freedom rights are Airbnb (2%), Amazon.com (4%), Alphabet (Google) (4%), eBay (5%) and Microsoft (5%). Those companies saw their scores drop by 3%, 2%, 5%, 2% and 0%, respectively, compared to last year.

“Threats to freedom don’t just come from the government, but from major corporations like financial institutions and big tech companies that have concentrated power over essential services and communication channels,” said ADF Senior Counsel and Senior Vice President for Corporate Engagement Jeremy Tedesco. “Too often, these corporations de-bank or deplatform Americans, citing policies that give them unbounded discretion to censor people for their views.”

Only one of the companies analyzed, Fidelity National Information Services, received an overall score of 50%. This marks a 32% jump from last year, when it received a score of 18%. M&T Bank received an overall score of 25%, an 11% jump from the 14% it earned last year.

Businesses studied in the research include those in “industries that have the greatest potential to impact individuals’ or institutions’ freedom of speech or religion,” including banking companies, payment processing services, and social media platforms. Scores were compiled based on responses companies provided to a survey commissioned by ADF.

Higher scores were given to companies that have “terms of use/service” that “avoid unclear or imprecise terms” and “avoid viewpoint discrimination” as well as “harmful conduct policies” that “apply equally.”

Additional factors that give corporations higher scores on the index include “harmful conduct policies” that “apply equally,” the presence of a “public anti-viewpoint discrimination policy,” “notice of content or service restrictions,” as well as policies promoting “respect for diverse beliefs at work” and religious discrimination.

A corporation’s score is also impacted by its advocacy on behalf of political spending, specifically whether or not it spent money in support of laws or litigation that are “harmful to speech or religion.” A company’s policy regarding written religious accommodations, or lack thereof, also factored into its score.

Other companies that saw slightly higher scores compared to last year include Citigroup, whose score rose to 11% from 8%; Morgan Stanley, 9% to 11%; Meta, 9% to 10%; Apple, 7% to 8%; Adobe, which scored 6% in 2023 compared to 5% in 2022; and GoDaddy, which rose from 2% score to 8%.

Besides the bottom five, a handful of other notable companies saw their scores decrease from last year: Rackspace (14% to 13%), Capitol One (13% to 12%), Visa (11% to 10%), Wells Fargo (13% to 10%), Citizens Financial Group (10% to 9%), JP Morgan Chase (15% to 9%), Mastercard (10% to 9%), Bank of America (10% to 8%), Discover (13% to 8%), Oracle (9% to 8%), PayPal (7% to 5%) and Twitter (6% to 5%).

Tedesco maintained that “companies need to take seriously the way their policies and practices can chill the exercise of speech and religion and deter individuals from participating in the democratic process.”

“All Americans benefit when powerful corporations respect free speech and religious freedom,” he added. “Our goal is to help the largest corporations implement positive and lasting changes that protect everyone’s free speech and religious freedom from corporate overreach. Each survey completed, resolution filed, and conversation with senior leadership advances the ball.”

Examples of troubling policies listed in the detailed report about the research, obtained by The Christian Post, include Twitter deplatforming The Babylon Bee under a “hateful conduct policy,” Netflix holding employee training promoting critical race theory and Bank of America’s restriction on donations to religious charities.

Twitter also de-platformed The Christian Post for nine months last year for factually reporting that a Biden official is a man and not a woman. CP’s account was reinstated after Elon Musk took over.

AUTHOR

Ryan Foley

Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post.

This article originally appeared in The Christian Post.

RELATED ARTICLE: Target Stocks Continue to Plummet Despite Cutting Ties with Satanist Designer

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Not Just Nashville: Attacks Against Churches Nearly Tripled in 2023, Report Finds

Last week’s mass murder of six people at a church-run Christian school constitutes 2023’s deadliest act of violence against churches, which have increased nearly three times this year compared to last year, a new report from Family Research Council finds. The number of anti-church attacks in 2022 had already tripled over four years, a previous report found.

In all, assailants attacked churches 69 times in the first three months of 2023, compared with 24 such acts during the same period last year, a 288% increase. The rising tempo of anti-Christian assaults — which includes arsons, bomb threats, vandalism, and sacrilege — has affected places of worship in 29 states. The motives behind such desecration run the gamut from pro-abortion activism or controversies over transgender ideology to apparently senseless acts of destruction.

“American churches are increasingly bearing the brunt of anger and aggression, whether that’s from political or other motivations,” the report’s author — Arielle Del Turco, assistant director of the Center for Religious Liberty at Family Research Council — told The Washington Stand. “This contributes to an environment of hostility toward Christianity.”

The acts of anti-church aggression documented between January and March of this year includes:

  • 53 incidents of vandalism;
  • 10 suspicious fires;
  • Three gun-related incidents; and
  • Three bomb threats — including a pipe bomb recovered outside Philadelphia’s 127-year-old St. Dominic Catholic Church.

“If this rate continues, 2023 will have the highest number of incidents of the six years FRC has tracked,” the report notes. The number of church attacks in 2023 already exceeds “the entirety of 2018, in which we identified only 50 incidents, or 2020, in which we identified 54.”

The month of January 2023 had more church attacks than any single month in the five years FRC has kept records, with 43 such events, according to data furnished to TWS. “This steep increase is a cause for concern,” says the update.

Hostility toward Christian views of hot-button political issues have exploded into violence and vandalism numerous times this year. In January, abortion activists spray painted the words “Women’s Body, Women’s Choice” over a pro-life banner hanging outside St. Stephen Catholic Church in Riverview, Florida.

Last month, transgender activists lashed out at Kentucky legislators who voted against their agenda by defacing an historic church. Vandals spray painted the words “TRANS PWR” on St. Joseph Catholic Church in Louisville, Kentucky, on March 3 — “the day after the Kentucky House of Representatives passed a bill that would protect children from harmful gender-transition procedures,” the report states. Undeterred state legislators enacted the child safety protections over Democratic Governor Andy Beshear’s veto later that month.

Individuals who identify as transgender have focused their rage on Christian facilities as well. In addition to 28-year-old Audrey Hale’s attack on The Covenant School in Nashville, a 27-year-old man who identifies as a woman set the 117-year-old Portland Korean Church building ablaze on January 3. The suspect, whose legal name is Cameron Storer, claimed to hear voices that “threatened to ‘mutilate’ Storer if Storer refused to burn the church down,” the new FRC report states.

Nashville police have yet to release Hale’s “manifesto,” purportedly due to an “ongoing investigation,” but officers have said Hale’s views of the transgender issue may have touched off her violent rampage. Storer apparently suffers from mental illness, which afflicts those who identify as LGBTQ at far higher rates than average, according to the Biden administration.

Sometimes, the same perpetrator strikes multiple times. Police say 40-year-old Peter Sirolli vandalized three Roman Catholic churches in New Jersey on the same morning, including burning a 10-foot-tall cross on the lawn of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Woodbury on January 13.

The new FRC update builds on an 84-page report released last December. In the original study, FRC verified 420 acts of hostility against houses of worship between January 2018 and September 2022. The new addition brings the full number of anti-Christian incidents in 2022 up to date. In the original report, FRC calculated 137 intentionally damaging incidents against churches had taken place through last September. The last three months of 2022 brought an additional 54 such acts, bringing the total number of assaults against churches to 191 in 2022.

In all, researchers documented a total of 543 attacks on 517 separate churches between January 2018 and March 2023. Of the 517 separate churches attacked, 26 of the churches were victimized more than once, with three being targeted three times each, according to data furnished to The Washington Stand.

Between 2018 and 2023, American churches have suffered:

  • 442 acts of vandalism;
  • 71 cases of arson;
  • 15 gun-related incidents;
  • 14 bomb threats; and
  • 25 miscellaneous acts of aggression against church facilities

A total of 25 incidents fell into multiple categories, according to FRC researchers.

The worst period of sustained assaults during those 39 months broke out last summer over the unprecedented, and heretofore unsolved, leak of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling last May. After the media reported the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade and return the issue of abortion to democratic control, pro-abortion activists committed 86 attacks against Christian churches last May (24), June (28), and July (34).

Churches also sustained damage from the “Black Lives Matter” riots, which broke out in the summer of 2020 over the killing of George Floyd. BLM rioters committed 11 acts of church desecration, researchers told TWS.

Despite the quickening pulse of anti-Christian crimes, some of which have been investigated as “hate crimes,” conservatives say the Biden administration has been too lax in its response. In January, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed H. Con. Res. 3, which noted that abortion extremists such as Jane’s Revenge had “defaced, vandalized, and caused destruction to over 100 pro-life facilities, groups, and churches” in 2022, yet “the Biden Administration has failed to take action to respond to the radical attacks on pro-life facilities, groups, and churches, or to protect the rights of these organizations.”

The Democrat-controlled Senate has taken no action on the bill.

“American leaders and citizens alike should condemn acts of hostility against churches and affirm the right for all people to attend their houses of worship without feeling targeted or threatened,” Del Turco told TWS.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: Loudoun County Bans Teacher from Adding Bible Verse in Email Signature

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.