BEISEKER, Alberta (LifeSiteNews) –– Only days after a Catholic church in Alberta was reduced to ashes, another Christian church in the Canadian province was burnt to the ground in what police have confirmed is a case of arson.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) from the Alberta area of Wheatland County said in a press release that a Seventh Day Adventist Church, located in Beiseker, a town about 70 kilometers northeast of Calgary, was “fully engulfed in flames” when fire crews arrived in the early morning hours on Wednesday of this week.
“A fire investigator was called to assist, and later that day, the fire was deemed to be an arson,” noted the RCMP. “The RCMP are now investigating and are seeking public assistance.”
The Seventh Day Adventist Church has been a part of the local community since 1945, and community members say they will miss it now that it is gone.
“It’s a meeting place,” said local community member Ewalt Lang, per a Global News report.
“You know, some people just came from California who got married here 60 years ago and it’s still here and those memories don’t go away.”
The church burning was condemned by Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leader Pierre Poilievre, who called it an “anti-Christian” hate attack.
“My thoughts are with the Seventh Day Adventist community in Beiseker, AB mourning the loss of their church at the hands of an arsonist,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter) yesterday.
My thoughts are with the Seventh Day Adventist community in Beiseker, AB mourning the loss of their church at the hands of an arsonist.
This is the 4th church in 2 weeks to be targeted by acts of violent anti-Christian hatred.
Please contact the RCMP or CrimeStoppers if you… pic.twitter.com/AH8rRzg6hZ
— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) December 22, 2023
“This is the 4th church in 2 weeks to be targeted by acts of violent anti-Christian hatred.”
The Beiseker church burning is just the latest in a string of Christian church burnings in Alberta and Canada.
Just earlier this week, LifeSiteNews reported on how St. Gabriel Catholic Mission, located in the northern Alberta community of Janvier, was reduced to ashes in a “suspicious” case of suspected arson.
Last week, LifeSiteNews reported on two historic Christian churches in Barrhead, Alberta, intentionally set on fire in what police said were suspected acts of arson.
Since the spring of 2021, well over 100 churches, most of them Catholic, have been burned or vandalized across Canada. The attacks on the churches came shortly after the unconfirmed discovery of “unmarked graves” at now-closed residential schools once run by the Church in parts of the country.
In 2021 and 2022, the mainstream media ran with inflammatory and dubious claims that hundreds of children were buried and disregarded by Catholic priests and nuns who ran some of the schools.
Despite the church burnings, the federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has done nothing substantial to bring those responsible to justice or to stem the root cause of the burnings.
Instead, a little over a month ago, Liberal and NDP Members of Parliament (MPs) struck down a Conservative Party of Canada motion that would have condemned incidents of church burnings and acts of vandalism.
In August 2022, LifeSiteNews reported about the destruction by fire of one of the oldest standing Catholic churches in Alberta. Police at the time said the fire was a “suspicious” incident.
RCMP are asking for anyone with information on the fires to call the Wood Buffalo RCMP at 780-788-4000 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS). Crime Stoppers tips are anonymous and can also be sent online at tipsubmit.com.
Despite the massive number of church fires, Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez in May made a brazen suggestion that the recent slew of anti-Christian church burnings could be remedied through further “online” internet regulation.