(LifeSiteNews) – Attacks against churches in the United States have sharply increased in recent years, indicating growing sentiments of anti-Christian hatred that has been manifested in other parts of the world as well.
An August 11 report issued by the Family Research Council (FRC) identified 1,384 acts of hostility against Christian churches committed between January 2018 and December 2024.
While the evangelical activist organization found 50 such crimes in 2018, 83 in 2019, 55 in 2020 and 98 in 2021, there was a dramatic spike in 2022 after the leak of the U.S. Supreme Court’s draft Dobbs decision that, when formally released in June, overturned the infamous 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The numbers of such attacks that year more than doubled, hitting 198 and suggesting a widespread coordinated criminal campaign.
The rise in these hostile aggressions continued in 2023 with incidents more than doubling again to 485 before leveling off in 2024 with 415.
The FRC press release highlights the dramatic increase in anti-Christian crimes by noting that the 2024 numbers, logging such incidents for only 12 months, were nearly equal to the period from 2018 to December 2022 (420), a span of 57 months.
The advocacy group states its data comes from “open-source documents, reports, and media outlets” surveyed across the nation.
The 415 identified incidents for this most recent 2024 report have impacted 383 different churches in 43 states.
The vast majority of incidents are classified as vandalism (284), with cases of arson numbering 55, gun-related crimes at 28, bomb threats at 14, and other incidents at 47, with 13 falling into more than one category.
READ: Florida parish damaged by second fire in 16 months after overturn of Roe v. Wade
Catholic churches burned, defaced with satanic graffiti, statues desecrated
Focusing specifically on Catholic churches, American advocacy group CatholicVote (CV) has maintained an interactive map that tracks violent attacks on churches throughout the U.S. since 2020 when mob violence related to the tragic death of George Floyd ensued across the nation.
Having updated this resource on August 28, the organization, which defends “Faith, Family, and Freedom,” confirmed their having documented “at least 521 attacks against Catholic churches in the United States” since May 28, 2020.
521 Attacks on Catholic Churches in America since May 2020. I didn’t know it was so high. https://t.co/cCZCMGiOsm pic.twitter.com/fWaULeV9oA
— Come Home to Rome (@ComeHometoRome) August 29, 2025
These crimes included “acts of arson which damaged or destroyed historic churches; spray-painting and graffiti of satanic messages; rocks and bricks thrown through windows; statues destroyed (often with heads cut off); and illegal disruptions of Mass.”
They also document the sharp rise in such crimes after the leaked Dobbs decision.
Also emphasizing the sharp rise in such incidents in May 2022, they noted that “(a)t least 356 attacks have been perpetrated against Catholic churches since the Supreme Court leak, with many including graffiti with pro-abortion messages.”
Suggesting widespread motivations of anti-Christian hostility behind such terrorist acts, the group reports that “while a handful of the attacks have included thefts, the vast majority have only involved property destruction, indicating that the primary motive is not material gain.”
Increases in anti-Christian violence in Israel a occupied Palestinian territories
The phenomena of increased attacks against Christians are not limited to the United States but has been noticed in nations and territories around the world.
In Israel and its occupied Palestinian territories, Christians have also reported being under increased attack since the current government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office in December 2022.
This observation is echoed by Israel’s Rossing Center for Education and Dialogue which released a report late last year documenting what it calls “the disturbing rise in hostilities towards Christians in Israel and East Jerusalem.”
This trend includes increased incidents of “spitting, physical and verbal harassment, property damage and disruption of liturgies,” the Jerusalem-based interfaith peacebuilding organization noted.
READ: Israeli investigative reporter spat on, harassed in Jerusalem while dressed as a Catholic priest
The data confirms that of the 111 such incidents they logged in 2023, all of these crimes were committed by Jews. And, overall, the report stipulates that these perpetrators are “primarily young men identifying with the Religious Zionist camp and ultra-nationalist stances.”
Latin Patriarch, Holy Land nun witness to anti-Christian aggression from radical Jews
In 2023, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, said this government had emboldened Jewish extremists to harass Christians and commit vandalism against this minority’s property as well.
“The frequency of these attacks, the aggressions, has become something new,” Pizzaballa observed at the time. “These people feel they are protected … that the cultural and political atmosphere now can justify, or tolerate, actions against Christians.”
READ: Latin Patriarch says new Israeli gov’t has emboldened Jewish extremists to attack Christians
Such incidents of vandalism have included a radical Jew smashing a large statue of Jesus Christ at the Church of the Flagellation, and two Israeli terrorists attempting to destroy icons at the Church of Gethsemane before attacking a bishop during worship services, the desecration of a Christian cemetery in Jerusalem, “Death to Christians” graffiti being written on the walls of a monastery in the Armenian quarter, and an act of vandalism being committed against a Maronite center.
These kinds of aggressions have occurred over the years with less frequency, including Jewish radicals spitting on Christians, disrupting their prayer and likely fire-bombing their property, such as the 2015 torching of the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes at Tabgha in Galilee.
More recently, in their broader attempt to expel the people of the Christian town of Taybeh from their homes and lands in the West Bank, Israeli settler terrorists set fire near the grounds of a Christian cemetery and their ancient Church of Saint George.
Additionally, in light of a long history of the Israeli army having a policy of deliberately desecrating and destroying Christian churches in Palestine, Mother Agapia Stephanopoulos recently told Tucker Carlson that Israel’s shelling of churches, such as the July 17 strike against Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza that killed three and injured nine, was no accident.
READ: Holy Land nun tells Tucker: American Catholics must ‘change the support for Israel’ in the US
Groups in Europe seek to ‘eradicate Christianity’
Finally, a report issued last November from the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe (OIDAC) logged 2,444 anti-Christian hate crimes across 35 European countries in 2023.
These incidents, documented by law enforcement and civil organizations, comprised vandalism (62%), including 24% classified as desecration; arson (10%); 232 acts of physical violence (7%), and threats (8%).
The organization explained that in cases where motives or background of the perpetrators could be established, most came from a radical Islamist ideology, followed by anti-religious individuals, those from the radical left and other political motives.
In the previous year’s report, OIDAC said such hate crimes were “perpetrated by radicalised members of ideological, political, or religious groups that follow an anti-Christian narrative.”
“In the case of anti-Christian hate crimes, our research shows that one of the main sources of aggression are radicalised members of extreme political groups, with a majority of cases coming from far-left political groups, such as Antifa, radical feminists, or LGBTQI groups. Furthermore, we have documented attacks by radical individuals from far-right groups, satanist groups, and radical Islamist groups,” the organization reported.
Marc Eynaud, the French author of Who wants to harm Catholics? Fires, desecration: facts we don’t want to see, told Le Figaro in 2023: “Between the looting, the desecration, the fires, the physical attacks against priests or even the faithful, the media attacks also which contribute to legitimizing in some way the concrete violent acts … all this contributes to the same more or less conscious objective: to eradicate Christianity.”
