Last Wednesday, I heard about the school shooting that killed two children and wounded 19 others at Annunciation Church in Minneapolis. It was an unusual shooting for a few reasons. First, as someone who grew up in Minneapolis, that is an unexpected place for a shooting to occur in Minneapolis. Second, this wasn't like other school shootings where a big kid at school has a gun and starts shooting. Third, it's almost unheard of for this kind of shooting to happen at a Catholic school.
The FBI determined from the shooter's manifesto and other evidence that anti-Catholic hatred played a part. This should be alarming to anyone. Despite the Constitution endorsing freedom of religion, we have here the action of an individual out to shoot people for (in part) their faith. Of course, Catholics aren't the only victims of hate based on religion. Jews have been attacked before in this country (remember the 2018 shooting in Pittsburgh?) and so have African-American Christians (1963 in Birmingham, 2015 in Charleston). There are likely other groups I'm forgetting. All three groups I just mentioned have historically been targeted by the Ku Klux Klan, but now it's just hateful people in general committing these acts of violence. Since I'm focusing on anti-Catholic violence for this post, though, I'd like to mention a few examples of violence against either Catholic property or Catholics themselves.
In August 1834, a mob burned down an Ursuline convent in Somerville, Massachusetts. The mob had anti-Catholic feelings in general, but more specifically, there were rumors of corruption happening there. No bloodshed happened, but the dramatic act of burning the convent to the ground got history's attention. In August 1921, a priest, Fr. James Coyle, was murdered by a KKK member for performing a Catholic wedding involving a Catholic and a recent Catholic convert. More recently, in April this year, a priest was shot in Kansas. Apart from those examples, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has a huge list of anti-Catholic acts in the U.S. in just the past five years.
As for the recent shooting, the motive seems to be not just anti-Catholicism but a strange mixture of various forms of hatred and mental illness. One might say the shooter was a leftist for his transgenderism and hatred of Trump. On the other hand, one might say the shooter was far-right for his hatred of Jews. Whatever can be said about the shooter, what is clear is that he had some very evil thoughts which got the better of him. In conclusion, the shooting last week should remind everyone that even though the United States government does not endorse any persecution, nor does it put anyone to death (in most states), persecution and murder still happens at the hands of individuals. While I don't think it can be said that American Catholics generally suffer persecution, incidents like what happened last week should remind us that even in a free country, it is still possible to get hurt or die because of anti-Catholic hatred - or any other hatred, for that matter.
