Congresswoman blasts Biden Justice Department for silence on anti-Catholic violence

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Congresswoman blasts Biden Justice Department for silence on anti-Catholic violence
'I’m tired of going to church on Sunday and being surrounded by cop cars at church.'



Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris laugh during a meeting of the pro-abortion 'Task Force on Reproductive Healthcare Access' during an event at the White House complex August 3, 2022 in Washington, DC. Win McNamee/Getty Images

Sep 2, 2022
WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews [adapted]) – Republican U.S. Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan took aim at the history of the Biden Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday over their refusal to take left-wing violence against religious pro-lifers seriously while framing concerned parents protesting school boards as potential terrorists.

“The attorney general and the DOJ have an obligation to uphold the Constitution, and they completely and utterly are not doing that,” McClain said during an appearance on Fox News morning show Fox & Friends. “Instead, this Department of Justice, and Merrick Garland, is focusing on parents at school board meetings. They took an oath to uphold the Constitution, which includes the First Amendment. Over 160 attacks on the Catholic Church. You don’t hear about it, you don’t have any investigations going on about it. What’s going on?

“I’ll tell you what’s going on: It doesn’t fit their narrative,” she continued. “They would prefer to deal with parents going to school board meetings and labeling them as terrorists, then they would deal with the over 160 attacks on the Catholic Church. It’s shameful, it’s disgraceful, and that is why the American people are so frustrated with Merrick Garland.”

“I’m tired of going to church on Sunday and being surrounded by cop cars at church,” the congresswoman lamented.

On August 30, McClain and 19 GOP colleagues sent a letter to Garland pressing him for answers and action.

“Under your leadership, the Department of Justice (DOJ) persecuted Americans for speaking out at school board meetings and harassed peaceful protesters by investigating them for domestic terrorism,” they wrote. “At the same time, the DOJ ignored blatant acts of violence committed by groups such as Antifa, who targeted and destroyed the property of small businesses and government facilities in Portland, Seattle and beyond. Americans are watching in horror as your DOJ fails to respond to the violence threatening religious freedom across the country and wondering why certain criminals seem to always avoid your interest.”

The pro-life group Catholic Vote has identified more than 200 attacks on Catholic Churches in the United States since May 2020. Pro-life crisis pregnancy centers have also been targeted with threats and violence  after June’s overturn of Roe v. Wade.

Last year, Garland and the Biden DOJ alleged a spike in threats to educators driven by opposition to the use of controversial instructional materials based on “critical race theory” (CRT), which asserts that race is a “socially constructed (culturally invented) category that is used to oppress and exploit people of color” through American institutions.

The announcement followed a letter by the leaders of the National School Board Association (NSBA) to President Joe Biden alleging that a smattering of examples of alleged unruly behavior at various school board meetings, all of which (if illegal) fell within the scope of local law enforcement, “could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.” Emails later showed that the White House gave feedback on the letter’s contents prior to Garland’s public reaction, and that the administration considered parental disapproval of leftist educators a matter of potential terrorism to be tracked using counter-terror tools.

By contrast, the most the administration has said so far about Roe-related extremism was a bulletin suggesting that “individuals who advocate both for and against abortion” are equally prone to violence.