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March 14 (UPI) -- The U.S. Conference of Bishops and other religious leaders are warning of the potential danger of attacks on houses of worship amid political divisions over wars abroad and social issues at home, with election year dynamics intensifying the situation. The Catholic conference's Committee on Religious Liberty, founded to fight legal threats to the free exercise of religion, is now more concerned about physical threats.
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The Israeli-Hamas conflict has caused anti-Semitic incidents to skyrocket and unleashed anti-Muslim hatred. Boiling tensions have elevated the chances of a terrorist attack on a synagogue or mosque, the committee's annual State of Religious Liberty in the United States report said.
"It is unusual for the committee to be compelled to decry foreseeable threats to the very lives of people of faith here in the United States," the committee writes in the report, released in January. "But there is no greater threat to religious liberty than for one's house of worship to become a place of danger, and the country sadly finds itself in a place where that danger is real."
The possibility of attacks tops the list of five areas of concern in the report. The others are: a federal regulation that could mandate doctors perform gender transition procedures; threats to strip religious charities of public funding to provide humanitarian aid to immigrants; suppression of religious speech on marriage and sexual difference; and proposed Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regulations that "aim to require religious employers to be complicit in abortion in an unprecedented way."
The presidential election slated for November will only increase partisanship, the report says.
"It is likely that the civility and sincerity of public discourse will deteriorate even further. Efforts to work across the aisle, whether in Congress or in state or local legislatures, will become increasingly difficult. In cases where power is split between parties, this may lead to paralysis; where one party controls the levers of power, it may lead to more extreme policies being enacted."
Abortion rights, a pre-eminent issue for the bishops, remain a primary focus of the national political debate.
"Promotion of access to abortion tends to be associated with hostility toward the exercise of beliefs about abortion, such as religious and conscientious objections to participating in or facilitating abortion," the report says.
'Real-life threat'
While anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim sentiments have roots that are partially geopolitical, they also can manifest in ways that threaten the exercise of religion.
"For instance, a Jew may fear for his safety wearing a yarmulke in public or while attending services at his synagogue, or a Muslim may fear harassment for engaging in daily prayer at work," the report says.
In his 2024 State of Hate address, Jonathan Greenblatt, the national director and CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said that in three months after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, 3,291 anti-Semitic incidents were reported in the United States.
"Anti-Semitism isn't just an abstract issue," Greenblatt said March 6 at ADL's Never Is Now summit in New York City. "This is a real-life threat to our lives, to Jewish life in America and again, to Jews around the world. Yes, never is now because if we don't insist on it, the consequences could be devastating."
Oren Segal, vice president of ADL's Center on Extremism, told UPI houses of worship are vulnerable targets because they represent the group or organization the attackers want to terrorize.
"There's no guessing. If you want to strike fear in a community even beyond where the physical location of an institution is, you target that institution and people feel it around the country," he said.
There has been a massive uptick of so-called "swatting" incidents -- calling police with a false report of a crime in progress such as a mass shooting or a hostage situation to lure law enforcement to a location -- targeting the Jewish community, Segal said.
"We know when a synagogue is targeted, an African American church, a mosque and other religious institutions are not far behind," he said.
The bishops' report cites an "alarming rate" of vandalism, arson and other property damage at Catholic sites recently. Before June 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe vs. Wade ruling that legalized abortion, most of the offenses occurred at churches and frequently involved defacement of religious icons and images.
After Roe was overturned, many of the offenses targeted pregnancy centers that oppose abortion with abortion rights messages, the report says. In the weeks before Ohio voters approved a constitutional amendment in November guaranteeing the right to abortion access, there was a notable uptick of vandalism at Catholic churches.
The committee encourages religious leaders and community members to visit a Department of Homeland Security website to learn how to recognize signs of potential attacks. These include watching for people trying to test a facility's security, covertly taking photos or video, or presenting false ID.
Gender transition
The bishops assert that no foreseeable legal development poses a greater threat to religious liberty than a proposed rule by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services affirming that protections against sex discrimination in Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act include sexual orientation and gender identity.
Under the rule, it would be considered discrimination for a healthcare worker to categorically object to performing gender transition procedures, even as a matter of religious belief or clinical judgment. The final version of the regulation could include a mandate to perform abortions, the report says.
In addition, the 1557 rule would require most health insurance companies to cover the procedures, which would make it difficult for religious organizations to find companies that will provide coverage for their employees that is consistent with their religious beliefs.
"Despite lip service paid to concerns of religious liberty, it appears to be specifically intended to force Catholic hospitals and religious healthcare workers to perform harmful gender transition procedures, including on children," the report alleges.
Proponents of the rule say its protection of people's health trumps religious opposition.
In comments submitted to DHS supporting the rule, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State said the rule's prohibition of discrimination in healthcare on the basis of sex -- which covers sex stereotypes; sex characteristics, including intersex traits; pregnancy or related conditions, including termination of pregnancy; sexual orientation; transgender status; and gender identity -- are critical to ensuring people's health and well-being.
"Our nation promises everyone the right to believe and practice any faith -- or no religion -- without government interference or coercion," Americans United, a nonpartisan advocacy organization, said. "But the right to free exercise does not provide anyone the right to harm others by ignoring laws that protect their rights."
Help for migrants
A migrant crisis at the Mexico border has led to partisan criticism of religious charities that serve newcomers and false accusations that they are motivated by money rather than their sincere religious beliefs, the report says.
"Some Republicans in Congress have made clear that they think the mere provision to migrants of basic humanitarian aid like food, water and shelter constitutes facilitation of unlawful entry, and that the religious charities' assistance to migrants encourages them to cross the border illegally in the first place," the report says.
GOP policy proposals have included stripping these organizations of government funding and these threats likely will increase as the immigration issue gains prominence ahead of the election, the report says.
Some Republicans in Congress and other public figures have called for formal hearings and investigations into the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic Charities USA, Jewish Family Service, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and other religious charitable groups.
Congressional efforts to investigate Catholic ministries could get new momentum if the Republican presidential nominee, likely to be Donald Trump, adopts a position that is similarly hostile to nonprofits that help migrants, the report says.
"Beyond legal threats to religious liberty, the physical safety of staff, volunteers and clients of Catholic ministries and institutions that serve newcomers may be jeopardized by extremists motivated by the false and misleading claims made against the church's ministries," the report says.
Pressure to conform
Gender identity and sexual orientation issues also are affecting religious liberty, the report says.
"In numerous settings -- schools, the workplace, healthcare -- individuals are being pressured to conform to the orthodoxy of gender ideology," the report alleges.
The pressure could increase in 2024 due to federal agency actions, including the EEOC's proposed guidance that says workplace harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity and a woman's reproductive decisions, such as those about contraception or abortion, is prohibited.
The proposal would require employers, in the name of prohibiting harassment, to allow employees who identify as transgender to use bathrooms and locker rooms reserved for members of the opposite sex, the report says.
It also would chill speech about the sanctity of life and the nature of conjugal relationships, according to the report.
"There are few freedoms more basic, or more inherent to the American political and social order, than the right to say what is true and not to be compelled to profess what is false," the report says. "People of faith must guard against erosion of this right."
The bishops also are critical of EEOC proposed regulations that they say construe the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to require accommodations for abortion, in vitro fertilization and contraception "and possibly other procedures or arrangements that go against the beliefs of Catholics and other faith groups, such as sterilization and surrogacy."
These requirements would typically arise in the case of employees' requests for leave to obtain and recover from the procedures, the report says.
The act requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for workers who have limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship.
The National Women's Law Center said the PWFA fills gaps in existing federal law that led to workers being forced to take unpaid leave or pushed out of work entirely.
"The PWFA helps to ensure that no worker has to choose between their job and their health or the health of their pregnancy," the organization said in written comments to the EEOC.
