When did the desecration of houses of worship become normal?

The images of vandalism in February at Holy Innocents School in Long Beach, California, were shocking, and yet all too familiar. A knocked-over tabernacle. A smashed statue of the Virgin Mary. Classrooms trashed.

As a mom of children in Catholic schools, the photos hurt my heart. Most especially when I think of the confusion it must cause the innocent children who go to school there. Those little, holy innocents.

I wasn’t surprised to see one staff member in an interview with local news struggling to find words because she was so emotional. This is deeply personal and painful, not just for them, but for all Catholics.

Mere months after a gunman invaded a Catholic school Mass in Minneapolis in August – fatally shooting two children who were praying and then desecrating the statue of the holy family – the attack on the Long Beach school felt particularly sinister.  

It was “as if the goal was destruction itself,” Holy Innocents School posted on social media: “Whoever did this didn’t just steal. They targeted. They attempted to pry open the Tabernacle. They destroyed items that are irreplaceable, both spiritually and financially. Some pieces can never truly be replaced, and others will be incredibly difficult – if not impossible – to restore.”

I hope they catch the criminal or criminals who did this and bring them to justice, but I also hope Americans wake up. We are getting desensitized to the desecration of our most sacred spaces.

Church vandalism attacks a First Amendment right

The only thing worse than these heinous and gross violations of our First Amendment freedoms is not caring about them. Just as Americans have become numb to gun violence, we risk becoming numb to attacks on our houses of worship as their rate accelerates.

One organization runs a tracker of attacks on U.S. Catholic churches alone, counting more than 500 attacks recorded since May 2020. One of them was an arson attack on a church just a mile from my home, where my family sometimes worships.

Another report found that in just 2024, there were more than 400 attacks on Christian churches more broadly, a number nearly equal to the prior 57 months combined in the group's prior report.

California, a state that is no stranger to anti-Christian animus, led the United States in these hostile incidents. Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco has been outspoken on the matter, lamenting the state government's tearing down of a beloved and iconic statue of Junipero Serra in 2025.

“We’re cut out of the equation and treated unjustly and discriminated against," the archbishop said. "This is a repeated pattern going on here in California.”

Other forms of anti-religious hate are spreading, too

It’s a pattern everywhere. Remember when anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protesters stormed a peaceful worship service in January in St. Paul, Minnesota? They shut down the service by harassing the pastor and worshipers. In an iconic still shot, a father comforts his visibly terrified child.

The agitators, who even came with reporters in tow, are accused of crimes of conspiracy against the rights of religious freedom at a place of worship and violating the FACE Act (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994), which prohibits interfering with or intimidating people in their houses of worship.

To me, they also undoubtedly felt emboldened to violate a sacred space in a culture that increasingly shrugs when houses of worship are vandalized left and right.

Synagogues are under assault as well. Attacks on Jewish temples are up 71.4% in early 2023 over the same period in 2022.

In January, a man repeatedly rammed his car into the global headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch Orthodox Jewish movement in New York City. A suspect on March 12 rammed his truck into Temple Israel’s entrance in West Bloomfield, Michigan.

I can remember a time when even one such incident would have shocked the American conscience. Instead, these repeated incidents of hate, violence and bigotry on America’s most sacred spaces are becoming part of the background noise.

We should not need trackers for attacks on churches and synagogues in America in 2026. Parishes like my own are having to divert hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from important charitable projects toward security from violent bigotry.

The Justice Department launched an investigation into the attack in California. Fine. Good. Catholics, as well as those of other religious persuasions, cannot be complacent. This is a pattern of hate targeting what we hold most sacred and dear.

We have every right to our righteous anger. 

 Ashley McGuire is a senior fellow at The Catholic Association.

© USA TODAY