From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

RCMP said the September 30 fire at Alexander First Nation’s Roman Catholic church in Alberta was ‘suspicious,’ marking yet another potential attack on Catholics, particularly those of indigenous heritage.

In what seems to be yet another attack on Catholics, the Roman Catholic church on Alexander First Nation in Alberta was reduced to rubble in what police are calling a “suspicious” fire.

On September 30, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) got a call just after midnight that the local Catholic church of the Alexander First Nation was on fire. Soon after, fire crews from the Alexander First Nation, as well as neighboring communities, worked together to halt the blaze. Alexander First Nation is located in northern Alberta near the town of Morinville.

Despite an earnest effort by firefighters, the church was damaged beyond repair and is considered a total loss, police confirmed.  

RCMP said in a press release that the “circumstances around this fire do appear suspicious,” and it is currently investigating the incident further. 

“RCMP will be working to determine the cause of the fire,” said police.  

In a Facebook post later in the day, the Alexander First Nation Fire Department Chief Wyatt Arcand said it was with great “sadness” that the First Nation’s church was lost. 

“It is with great sadness that we confirm that our Nation’s church burned down last night,” wrote Arcand. “I would like to thank the Nation’s Fire Department staff, Public Works and Security and all those who assisted and continue to assist today in ensuring the fire is completely out.” 

The Alexander First Nation church fire is the second church fire in less than a week. On September 28, an Anglican church in Loon Lake, Saskatchewan, was also reduced to a pile of ashes. The fires are just the two most recent in a string of church burnings and vandalism incidents which have plagued the country, particular indigenous Catholics.

Indeed, since the spring of 2021, some 112 churches, most of them Catholic, have been either burnt to the ground, vandalized or defiled across the country.

The church attacks started in earnest in 2021 when the mainstream media and federal government ran with the inflammatory and dubious claims that hundreds of children were buried and disregarded by Catholic priests and nuns who ran schools as part of the now-defunct residential schools system.

LifeSiteNews reported late last month that the Trudeau cabinet’s own data confirms there was a massive uptick in church attacks following the unproven claim that 215 “unmarked graves” were discovered at the Kamloops Residential School in British Columbia. With no bodies having been recovered, and the claims being made based off of soil disturbances found with ground-penetrating radar, Kamloops First Nation has since changed its claim of 215 graves to 200 “potential burials.”  

While the attacks have rocked Catholics as a whole, they have had a particular impact on indigenous Catholics as many of the churches targeted have been located on First Nations.

Despite the devastating impact the dubious residential school claims have had on Catholics, including indigenous Catholics, a backbencher MP from the socialist New Democratic Party (NDP) Leah Gazan wants to criminalize through legislation those who deny the system was a “genocide.”

Anyone with information about the fire but wants to remain anonymous is asked to contact the local Crime Stoppers by phone at 1‐800‐222‐8477 (TIPS), or at www.tipsubmit.com. All others can contact the Morinville RCMP at 780-939-4520.