A Coptic Christian church was recently burned to the ground—not in Egypt, where the torching of Coptic churches is not an uncommon occurrence, but in Canada, also known as “the church-burning centre of the Western world.”
In the early morning hours of July 19, St. George Coptic Orthodox Church in Surrey, which served 500 families and provided food for the homeless, was set aflame and completely destroyed. Only one charred wall remains standing.
According to the report, “The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but Surrey RCMP [police] said it is being treated as ‘suspicious.’ The St. George Coptic Orthodox Church was also the target of an attempted arson just last Wednesday, although authorities do not know if the two incidents are connected.”
What, exactly, do Canadian mounted police find “suspicious”? The church was clearly targeted for arson, as evidenced by the fact that it was targeted for arson a few days earlier, and at the very same time (between 2:30-4:00 am). On July 14, surveillance video captured a woman lighting a fire, one that failed to catch, at the church door. That the “authorities do not know if the two incidents are connected” seems like wishful thinking.
What is deserving of the term “suspicious” is that, days after the church reported the first failed arson attempt to police—which should have led to better awareness and security for the church—another successful arson attempt took place.
After expressing its “immense sadness and pain” at the loss of the church, a statement from the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Mississauga called on Premier John Horgan and the authorities to expedite the investigation, correctly observing that “The timing of this fire … raises many questions about what the authorities did to protect our church, especially considering the attempt on the same church this past Wednesday.”
Similarly, congregant Nancy Khalil, whose family helped build the now destroyed sanctuary, as well as dozens of “priceless” hand-painted icons, also expressed disappointment that “neither provincial nor federal leaders had yet spoken out about the fire.” “It hurts,” she said, “to see no word from the government. I’m very, very much hoping for at least a statement from the premier to condemn what is happening.”
She shouldn’t hold her breath. The leaders of Canada could care less about yet another church burning to the ground. Before this Coptic church was burned, at least 50 other churches, mostly Catholic, a few Anglican, were also vandalized or torched in Canada. Here’s how Canada’s leading voices responded:
- Harsha Walia, the head of British Columbia’s Civil Liberties Association—which claims to “promote, defend, sustain, and extend civil liberties and human rights”—tweeted: “Burn it all down.”
- Prominent Newfoundland lawyer, Caitlin Urquhart, feels the same way—“Burn it all down.”
- Heidi Mathews of Harvard Law School bizarrely described the vandalization and torching of churches as “the right of resistance to extreme and systemic injustice.”
- As for the Prime Minister himself, Justin Trudeau, after offering the usual lip service and saying that ongoing church attacks are “unacceptable,” he said: “I understand the anger that’s out there … against institutions like the Catholic Church. It is real, and it is fully understandable given the shameful history that we’re all becoming more and more aware of.”
So attacks on Christian churches are “unacceptable”—but they’re also “understandable.” Considering that these two words neutralize each other, Trudeau’s stance is impotent, his words meaningless.
But why are they “understandable” in the first place? According to Canadian “mainstream” media—all of which are left of Left—unmarked graves of Natives were recently discovered by boarding schools, and the Catholic Church is being accused of killing them and trying to cover it up. The problem, however, is that this widely shared narrative appears to be inherently false (see here and here): these graves were once marked and therefore known, and most of those buried in them died of natural causes.
More specifically, the deaths mostly took place in the early 1800s. Apparently some plague—epidemics were especially common back then—broke out in these church-sponsored boarding schools for natives, in part due to the prevailing hygiene and lack of proper medical treatment (in comparison to modern standards and technology).
At any rate, that the current accusation against the Catholic Church was always a pretext to justify anti-Christianism in general is amply demonstrated by this most recent torching of a Coptic Orthodox church: what on earth do the Copts, Egypt’s native Christians, who began migrating to Canada over a century after these graves were first dug, have to do with this issue?
Nothing, they just happen to be Christian—and that’s apparently all that matters, all that warrants hate crimes and indifference to them in Leftist Canada. Evil, after all, never needs an excuse to manifest itself, though a pretext always offers good cover.
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Thank you for an excellent article that exposes the reality of this morally bankrupt, God-forsaking Marxist country. The tone is set by Justin Trudope, the man-boy Prime Minister, who, as I have mentioned numerous times, stated in 2018 that Christians are the worst part of our society.
Christian discrimination started some years back, i.e. denying law students accreditation who graduated from a Christian University upholding biblical moral standards, refusing funding for summer programs to Christian groups unless they signed agreement with abortion, homosexuality and much more.
The church burnings are recent, coordinating with the not-so-new discovery of old unmarked graves on sites close to now defunct Native residential schools. The leftist press deliberately released the information to create emotional overflow on the day before Canada Day, thus cancelling national celebrations. Instead they published photos of Trudope bending the knee while holding a small teddy bear on one of the burial sites. There is no doubt that a lot of abuse took place in some of those schools, but the victimhood has continued for generations. Even though some Native chiefs have condemned the church burnings, some even on their reserves, it is the white Marxists who are condoning it.
The RCMP, especially in Alberta, are reminiscent of Germany’s storm troopers in the brutal way they arrested and jailed Pastors who followed their consciences and kept their churches open for worship when they were supposed to lock down because of the covid plandemic.
I doubt they will arrest anyone for arson in the church burnings, but if it were a mosque or two set on fire, there would be swift action. As it is, anyone who criticizes a Muslim, is now branded as an Islamophobe, by Justin no less.
IMO all the graves should be exhumed and identified so that the truth will be known. But some people don’t like the truth. It takes away their reason for being.
I agree with you entirely Tershia. A prime minister’s duty, one worthy of his position, should have been immediately to protect all Churches whatever his views.
Well said, Tershia. Justin Trudeau, like a rebellious and undisciplined child, is simply a shameful, shallow, morals-destitute, airhead. His empty statements regarding the church burnings are disgraceful, not least because the Coptic Church and Anglican Church were not in the least involve in residential schools. The Roman Catholic Church was, but if the Government of Canada had not conceived of the idea of these schools, implemented and enforced their existence with the aid of the RCMP and courts, the Catholic Church would not have been involved to play the shameful role it did.
The fact is, residential schools – reminiscent of apartheid in South Africa, but even the South Africa government of that time did not sink so low as to forcefully remove black children from their families – began through the action of the Government of Canada. Justin Trudeau needs to get his disgraceful head around this reality when endeavouring so diligently to shift blame to the church.
As to all the Canadian bright sparks who are saying ‘Burn it all down’, hopefully this will include their institutions and homes. I came to this country regarding it a form of refuge, but, sadly, it is rapidly degenerating into a moral and intellectual backwater. Poor, almost non-existent, leadership has serious consequences for a society.
You think the fact that a Christian fanatic terrorist wiped out a Muslim family and Christians do other crimes against Muslims (attack hijabi women, shoot up QC mosque, etc.) may explain concerns over islamaphobia?
Well that’s a lie. No Christian ‘fanatics’ are out there killing Muslims. The few attacks on Muslims that have happened since 9/11 were all committed by persons who were both lunatics and ‘secular.’
*** God love ya. … Cause you need Him.
This latest act of malice, thus time against a Coptic Christian Church in the West, no less, has to be particularly hurtful to this preeminent thinker, Raymond Ibrahim, whose scholarship is concerned with advancing the positive and principled interface of nations having a Judeo-Christian heritage with Islam, which has been trying to eliminate Christianity for 1400 years. The liberal progressive movements of the past half-century in the West are so lacking in hindsight, insight and foresight that they cannot see the damages they are doing to our freedoms of expression, conscience and religion. More courageous people have to speak out, or write, to our politicians, academics, Hollywood celebrities and newscasters, in order to get our nations right again.
Canada drank the kool-aid. That was easy! Depraved anti Jew, anti Christian, anti Asian US exported it and the northern neighbors drank it. Socialist President of Mexico has more sense than the Trudeau-Biden axis of idiocy. No wonder the French are afraid.
Here, too, they cannot go quietly to church.
The ‘residential’ school hoax is a Big Lie.
As with ‘Global Cooling’ I recall this lie from the 60’s. It gets recycled and revamped every so often. The latest version is particularly virulent and obnoxious.
Folks would do well to remember that the ‘residential’ schools – designed to assimilate the Indian students and help them accommodate to society – were a LEFTIST – Progressive innovation following the pattern of the best elite schools of Europe – where all of the elite went to such boarding schools (and learned to hate their God, Christ, their nation, and the peasants, and very little else).
Blaming current religious orgs – no matter how innocent or corrupt they may be – is a total wrong. Yes, it’s true that Churches and especially the Catholics contracted to run these schools, but they were “following the science” and “doing what the right thing.” All of the voices of opposition – while legitimately concerned about the welfare of the natives – were both 1. railing against the prevailing narrative, much like the anti-Covid-1984-jab people now, and 2. …
… they were also racist too. They thought the native children could not hack complex subjects like reading and writing and ‘rithmetic.
Revising history is bad enough, but we should not believe Big Brothers’ revisions even when they have some iota or tittle of ‘reality’ to them.
** God bless everyone here. d