Church-goers continue to worship off site after a fire that destroyed an Orlando Catholic church on the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health ruling.
The fire mirros similar attacks, including arson, against churches across the nation since the decision which found Roe. v Wade unconstitutional.
The Incarnation Catholic Church announced on its Facebook page last week that “the church building caught fire. The social media post encouraged parishioners to attend other parishes in the area while noting that only one Sunday mass would take place in nearby Royal Hall that day. A statement published on the church’s website explained that “no further information is available on the cause at this moment,” adding that “any updates that may be shared on this matter will be made available here.”
In an interview with a local television station the Rev. William Holiday described the interior of the church following the blaze as destroyed and expressed gratitude that the building was empty at the time of the fire. He told the news outlet that “we did lose some paintings and some statues and things like that.”
When asked if the church had been targeted, Holiday responded, “I wouldn’t even want to conjecture. We’re just going to move on,” insisting that if the fire was “just circumstantial, that’s in God’s providence” and “if it was possibly intentional, that’s in God’s providence also.”
The Dobbs opinion sparked outrage from pro-abortion activists and led to churches and pro-life pregnancy centers finding themselves subject to varying degrees of vandalism, including arson in some cases. Earlier this year, a grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida indicted pro-abortion activists on federal charges for defacing a pro-life clinic in nearby Winter Haven. Both pro-life clinics and Catholic churches have become the targets of pro-abortion vandals because of their outspoken opposition to abortion.
