Another church firebombed in Chile days after papal visit

REUTERS/Pablo Sanhueza

A demonstrator holds up a Mapuche Indian flag during a protest against the papal visit in Santiago, Chile.

Vandals have reportedly attacked another Catholic Church in Chile on Monday, just days after Pope Francis left the country and about a week after demonstrators firebombed four churches.

According to the Associated Press (AP), seven firebombs were thrown at the church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Chilean Capital of Santiago. Priest Modesto Perez said that the damage to the church was limited.

The latest attack came after vandals attacked four churches with firebombs just days before Francis arrived in the country.

In one church, the perpetrators left a warning to the pope, saying the next bombs would be "in your cassock." The vandals also threatened to attack the pontiff's "disgusting morals" with the "fire of combat."

"We will never submit to the dominion you want to exercise over our bodies, our ideas and actions, because we were born free to chose the path we want to take. Against every monk and nun and against every preacher. Bodies free, impure and wild," a message from the perpetrators read, as reported by Catholic Herald.

Outgoing President Michelle Bachelet said the incidents were "very strange" because it cannot be linked to a specific group.

"What I've been told is that, for example, [when the Pope visited] Colombia, there were groups there with a little sign [in protest]. In a democracy, people can express themselves as long as they do so in a peaceful and appropriate way," the president said.

The police were able to diffuse the explosive in the fourth church. More than a dozen churches have been attacked with firebombs in the country since Jan. 12, according to AP.

It is unclear who was behind the attacks, but pamphlets were found in some of the churches in support of the cause of indigenous Mapuche, which has been fighting for a return of ancestral lands and an end to discrimination.

Radical Mapuche groups have been known to use firebombs to attack churches in Chile. There have been speculations that the recent firebombing of churches was a possible sign that the radical groups saw the papal visit as an opportunity to bring more attention to their cause.

German Silva, a political analyst at the Universidad Mayor in Santiago, asserted that the firebombing of churches is "an expression of the disgruntlement" that many Mapuche feel for the Catholic Church.

Several bishops have spoken out in defense of human rights and worked closely with indigenous populations in Chile during the 1973-1990 dictatorship. However, it has been said that today's bishops are less visible and less active when it comes to ministering to the poor. Moreover, the church no longer has the same moral authority that it once had in the country.

A Mass officiated by the pope in Santiago during his visit was met with protest from socialists, the LGBT community and people who were outraged by the church's reaction to clerical sex abuse scandal that many Chileans feel has been left unresolved.