By Catholics for Catholics
When staff arrived to Holy Innocents School on Monday morning, they discovered a heartbreaking scene. They realized “the assembly hall, chapel, and classrooms had been broken into and just about everything was torn apart, including multiple statues thrown to the ground and shattered” according to ABC7 News. The vandals removed the tabernacle from the sanctuary and attempted to break it open, presumably to steal the consecrated hosts.
The Catholic men’s group Sanctus Fidelis reports that Bishop Mark Trudeau “said that it is the worst case of vandalism that he’s ever seen in the region.” Thankfully, the group was able to confirm that while some of the consecrated hosts were damaged by the tabernacle being thrown to the ground, none were stolen.
Veronica Flamenco, the Media Director of Catholics for Catholics who was also from the Long Beach area and very familiar with Holy Innocents, posted the following statement to X:
“THE PERSECUTION OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS CONTINUES TO BE REAL AND LITERAL
— Catholics for Catholics 🇺🇲 (@CforCatholics) February 3, 2026
This morning, the Catholic school of Holy Innocents in Long Beach, CA was brutally vandalized. They destroyed absolutely everything and tried to steal the Consecrated Host from the tabernacle…
I have… pic.twitter.com/QgnwidNY5k
Bishop Robert Barron also described the attack as “Horrific” and asked the public to join him in offering prayers for the people of Holy Innocents School.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon announced Monday afternoon that the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is launching an investigation into the attack. An estimated $100,000 of damage was done.
Holy Innocents is known for their classical education style in the Carmelite spirit, and they celebrate Latin Mass daily.
According to a CatholicVote database, there have been 547 attacks on Catholic churches since May 2020. The tracker notes that these attacks “spiked dramatically” after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs opinion was leaked in May 2022. Concerningly, only 30% of these cases appear to have resulted in an arrest.
In 2023, it was discovered that the FBI sent out a memo linking “radical-traditionalist” Catholics to supposed terrorism. The memo, which was rescinded by the FBI a day after a whistleblower published it, specifically characterized traditional Catholics by “the rejection of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) as a valid church council; disdain for most of the popes elected since Vatican II, particularly Pope Francis and Pope John Paul II; and frequent adherence to anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, and white supremacist ideology.”
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