The Department of Homeland Security sent out a bulletin last month that read in part, The United States as a whole “remains in a heightened threat environment” for “the coming months,” thanks to “perceptions of the 2024 general election cycle and legislative or judicial decisions pertaining to sociopolitical issues.”
Top targets include churches and other houses of worship, schools, and police. The official communication cites the March 27 mass shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, which left six students and faculty dead before police killed the shooter, a 28-year-old woman who identified as a transgender male.
Before the heightened alert, 2023 was already on track to record the largest number of anti-Christian church attacks of any year researchers have tracked to date.
The number of U.S. church attacks nearly tripled in the first quarter of 2023 compared to 2022, according to a report from Arielle Del Turco, assistant director of the Center for Religious Liberty at Family Research Council.
Churches known for taking a pro-life, pro-family stand find themselves the most likely to end up in assailants’ crosshairs.
Del Turco told The Washington Stand, “In the United States, the majority of the churches that face targeted attacks are Catholic churches.”