BROOMALL, Pennsylvania (LifeSiteNews) — Police arrested a man on Tuesday for threatening to kill people at a Catholic church and school in Pennsylvania.
Cristopher Henderson, 37, was charged with felony terroristic threats after targeting St. Pius X Parish, which consists of more than 3,300 families, according to its Facebook page.
The deranged man claimed that he was driving to the church and school in Broomall, Pennsylvania, and wrote on Facebook, “I’m sending all you [expletive] to h–.”
Community members reported the post to police, who secured the parish and arrested Henderson while he was driving, according to Daily Voice.
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The church and the school were both in use at the time, and Mass was underway, the outlet reported.
Police charged Henderson with “felony terroristic threats with intent to terrorize another,” a third degree felony. He was committed to a Delaware County prison after he failed to post $500,000 bail.
The man had previously made disturbing statements about St. Pius X Parish and was there on Sunday, according to CBS News. Officers questioned and detained him that day but released him, as they said he hadn’t committed a crime.
Henderson asked police on Sunday, “Do you come here every Sunday or is this just for me?” He added, “You never know when someone is going to randomly come shoot up the place.”
A court ordered him to undergo a psychological evaluation and banned him from entering Marple Township, where St. Pius X Parish is located, other than for activities related to his court case.
A preliminary hearing for Henderson is scheduled for June 25.
“We are aware of some alarming social media posts directed towards St. Pius X,” Marple Township Police said on Tuesday. “The individual responsible for making those posts is currently in our custody, under arrest, and awaiting arraignment.”
“Police will provide a continued presence at St. Pius through the end of the school day. There is no threat to the public at this time,” they added.
“I firmly believe we stopped a tragedy before it happened. I really do believe that,” Marple Township Police Chief Brandon Graeff said.
Henderson faces other active charges, including aggravated assault and terroristic threats linked to another case from April, according to Daily Voice.
The incident on Tuesday is the latest in a wave of anti-Catholic attacks across the United States in recent years, including more than 500 reported attacks on Catholic churches since 2022.
On May 22, police arrested a man who broke into and burned a Catholic school in Missouri, damaged a statue of Our Lady, and kicked an image that depicted Jesus.
The arsonist said that he “hoped the fire would burn the whole school down,” according to Ozarks First, and that he believed that the Bible was being “pushed down people’s throats.”
Earlier this year, attackers devastated a Catholic church and school in California, knocking down the tabernacle, ransacking classrooms, and again damaging Marian statues.
Last year, a gender-confused shooter killed two children and injured other people at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis; a man with 200 explosives targeted a Mass with Catholic Supreme Court justices at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, D.C.; another man with lethal weapons threatened the Norbertine St. Michael’s Abbey in California; satanists attacked a Catholic church in Kansas and attempted to desecrate the Eucharist at the state capitol; and a vandal set off dynamite in the adoration chapel of another Pennsylvania church, among numerous other anti-Catholic incidents.