The Texas incident is part of a pronounced uptick in vandalism and other attacks on Catholic churches over the past several years.
PORTER, Texas (LifeSiteNews) — Statues of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of the Blessed Virgin Mary were found beheaded at a Texas church on Sunday.
Catholic journalist Sachin Jose posted to X on Wednesday a picture of the remaining body of the Sacred Heart statue outside St. Martha Catholic Church in Porter, Texas, showing the head has been roughly hewn off. The perpetrator has stolen the statues’ heads and remains unidentified as of Thursday afternoon, according to Fox 26 Houston.
The incident is especially tragic considering that Catholics devote the month of June to devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
“This isn’t just vandalism … it’s a hate crime against the Mother of God and the faith of millions. If this were any other religion, it would be headline news. The silence is telling,” a Catholic father wrote on X in response to the beheading of the Blessed Virgin statue.
The incident is part of a pronounced uptick in vandalism and other attacks on Catholic churches over the past several years. From 2020 through February 2024 alone, there were at least 400 attacks on Catholic churches in the U.S., according to data compiled by CatholicVote.
According to CatholicVote, these attacks increased as part of an eruption of the civil unrest that swept the country in May 2020 after the death of George Floyd. Violence spiked again after the leak of the draft of the Supreme Court opinion Dobbs v. Jackson that overturned Roe v. Wade.
However, Canada has also seen a rise in attacks on Catholic churches, so much so that U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance has drawn attention to them.
“Canada has seen a number of church burnings in recent years thanks to anti-Christian bigotry,” Vance wrote on X in December, adding, “All over the world, Christians are the most persecuted religious group.”
