Canada’s anti-religious conflagration claims historic Quebec church

A fire on 3 October has destroyed the 110-year-old church of Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Allégresses in the city of Quebec in northwestern Canada.

By the time the fire was put out the same day, the roof had completely collapsed, and one of the two bell towers had been destroyed as well, according to local media.

There were no reported injuries or deaths, while no information was released about the potential causes of the fire at the time, reports The Epoch Times.

Canada has experienced a wave of cross-country church fires and arson attacks in the aftermath of claims in 2021 that ground-penetrating radar had uncovered the possible burial sites of 215 children at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School that had been run by the Catholic Church in British Columbia.

The alleged discovery led to an apology being issued by the Pope. But the sites have still not been excavated and to date there has been no official confirmation of any bodies being present.

Nevertheless, since the claims anywhere between 33 – 80 churches across Canada have been vandalised, burned down or desecrated, including eleven churches in western Canada during the immediate weeks following the Kamloops claims and that were all determined by investigators to have been caused by arson, reports The Epoch Times.

While many Canadian conservatives have been quick to condemn these attacks on Christian places of worship, the same cannot be said for Canadian progressives, notes the Daily Telegraph.

“It is also becoming disturbingly clear that, for some on the Left, hatred of Christianity is growing stronger,” Michael Taube, a columnist for various Canadian media and a speechwriter for former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harpe, writes for the Telegraph.

“They reject traditional religious beliefs and institutions associated with Christianity. They deplore what they perceive as authoritarian leadership among Catholic priests related to the tragic history of residential schools. Hence, they may believe that burning down churches fulfils some kind of deluded tit-for-tat scenario.”

He notes that in addition to church burnings, the country has also struggled with a rise in aggressive and violent far-Left social movements, as well as a significant uptick in racist and anti-Semitic behaviour after the attack by Hamas against Israel on 7 October 2023.

It all means, Taube argues, that Canada’s long-held reputation as a safe, welcoming and peaceful country has been “shattered”.

The lack of pushback or interest from many Canadian public figures and media institutions over the church fires may be one of the reasons that Canadians continue to lose confidence in news media. Just 32 per cent say the information presented by news outlets is “accurate and impartial”, according to in-house research by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).

As a result, it appears a bitter irony that Canadians are losing faith in a secular institution responsible for informing a country’s citizenry and holding power to account, at the same time that the media looks the other way while a religious institution responsible for the spiritual nourishment of the country is literally burning.

RELATED: Another Canadian church burns to the ground with cause of blaze a ‘mystery’

Photo: The remains of the church of Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Allégresses following the fire; screenshot from lenouvelliste.ca.

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