The Department of Justice announced the arrest of Alexander Scott Mercurio, 18, after he allegedly plotted to kill Christians and burn down churches in his town to further the mission of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). (Credit: U.S. Department of Justice)
The Department of Justice (DOJ) arrested an 18-year-old man from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, who allegedly planned to kill Christians and burn down churches in his town to further the mission of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
The DOJ’s criminal complaint alleges that Alexander Scott Mercurio intended to kill Christians in the nearest church, burn the building to the ground, then hijack a car and do the same at other nearby churches. He planned to handcuff his father and tape his father’s mouth shut so he could steal his guns to commit the attacks, according to the DOJ allegations.
According to the DOJ, Mercurio landed on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) radar when he tried to provide financial support to foreign terrorist organizations, including ISIS, when he was 17 years old. He later communicated with individuals whom he believed were affiliated with ISIS but were actually confidential FBI sources, the complaint alleges.
Mercurio allegedly told these sources he planned to attack the churches on April 8, which was two days before the end of Ramadan and the celebration of Eid al-Fitr. The DOJ also alleges that he swore an oath to ISIS and purchased materials with which he planned to carry out the attack, including butane canisters.
Mercurio was charged with attempting to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization and faces up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted.
“Thanks to the investigative efforts of the FBI, the defendant was taken into custody before he could act, and he is now charged with attempting to support ISIS’s mission of terror and violence,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “The Justice Department will continue to relentlessly pursue, disrupt, and hold accountable those who would commit acts of terrorism against the people and interests of the United States.”
According to messages allegedly sent by Mercurio to an encrypted group chat that sought to facilitate funds for Islamic terrorist organizations, the then-17-year-old said he had “very Christian and conservative parents.” He allegedly told an FBI source that his family “oppresses” him by discouraging him from being Muslim.
In December 2023, when he was expressing doubts about committing an act of terror, Mercurio allegedly told one of the FBI sources that he “just want[ed] to die and have all my problems go away.” On April 3, he allegedly met with one of the FBI sources and expressed his intent to go through with the attacks. He also allegedly told sources he wanted to be a martyr for Islam.
“This case should be an eye-opener to the dangers of self-radicalization, which is a real threat to our communities,” Special Agent Shohini Sinha of the Salt Lake City FBI said in a statement.
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CNA Staff, Aug 12, 2020 / 12:10 pm (CNA).- Official figures from New York state likely under-represent the real number of nursing home residents who died as a result of COVID-19, according to a new report on Tuesday.
A group of men studying to become priests at St. Michael’s Abbey in California. / EWTN News In Depth
Denver, Colo., Aug 21, 2023 / 14:45 pm (CNA).
Just outside the City of Angels lies an abbey whose residents are praying to the angels. St. Michael’s Abbey outside of Los Angeles in Orange County opened in 2021 and is one of the newest abbeys in the world.
“It’s sort of the perfect distance between the busyness of the city, where we need to be doing our apostolic work, and the quiet of the desert, where we need to find Jesus in contemplation,” Father Ambrose Criste, a priest at the abbey, told EWTN Correspondent Colm Flynn in an interview for “EWTN News In Depth.”
The Very Rev. Chrysostom Baer, prior of St. Michael’s Abbey, shared that it is like “heaven on earth.”
“It’s filled with the Catholic truth and the solemn celebration of the liturgy. It’s a place to work out your salvation, to grow in virtue, to overcome your vices, and help lead people to heaven,” he added.
Criste believes young men are being drawn to the community because the abbey has stayed true to the order’s traditions.
“We say our prayers; we wear our religious habit; we live according to the charism of our order and the traditions of our order, and we’ve never really given any of that up,” he said. “And that’s why young people want to come and be a part of it.”
The abbey follows the canons of the Norbertines, which was founded in 1121 by St. Norbert in France.
The order’s mother abbey is called the Abbey of Csorna, which is in Hungary. In 1950, the police warned the Norbertines in the country that they would be taken away under the Communist regime and never be allowed back into Hungary. A small group of priests then sought and received permission to leave the country in order to keep the order alive elsewhere.
Today, St. Michael’s Abbey has 70 men living in it, half of whom are priests and the other half who are seminarians.
“Those religious communities and those seminaries that represent authentic, full-bodied traditional Catholicisim — the young people are flocking to it because it’s exactly what the young people want,” Criste explained. “It’s what the world needs.”
Baer said he hopes, first and foremost, that the abbey will “save souls and be a beacon of light and hope in a very strange land, a land that thinks that it’s gone beyond God and doesn’t need him anymore.”
“We’re trying to fill that gap in the human heart with the truth of Christ and the love of the Holy Spirit,” he said.
The segment about St. Michael’s Abbey on “EWTN News In Depth” can be viewed below.
Lia Garcia, director of Hispanic Ministry at the Archdiocese of Baltimore, speaks at a panel discussion exploring the impact of U.S. Latinos on the 2024 election hosted by Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life on Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. / Credit: Georgetown University/Art Pittman
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 10, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
As a record number of Hispanic Americans will be eligible to vote this November, many are asking what impact Latinos — and Latino Catholics in particular — will have on the 2024 election.
Though acknowledging the great diversity in culture and thought among American Hispanic communities, the panelists posited that the overarching values of family, faith, and care for the poor will factor largely into Latinos’ decisions at the ballot box this November.
“We are big on family, family values … We want to be welcoming and be very attentive to the needs of others,” said Lia Garcia, one of the panelists and the director of Hispanic ministry at the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
“We throw big parties, we eat a lot of food,” she added, laughing. “Everybody is invited to our gatherings, so our faith teaches us that we are built to be in communion in relationship with God and in relationship with one another.”
Hispanics don’t fit into a box
Speaking with CNA after the panel, Garcia said that in her work with Hispanic Catholics, she has heard “a lot of anxiety about what is going to happen” and “about who is going to win” the presidency.
She said that many Hispanic voters “feel pinned” between conflicting priorities held by Trump and Harris.
“They feel that they have to choose between the issue of abortion and defending immigrants,” she said. “Latino Catholics are very much for life. You can see that in our big families. But they also have a concern about the immigration issues. Even if immigration doesn’t directly affect them because now they’re documented, but they know someone, they know a family member, they know a colleague … it’s really scary to people how Latinos are portrayed to the rest of the world as criminals.”
A member of the audience asks a question during a panel discussion exploring the impact of U.S. Latinos on the 2024 election hosted by Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life on Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. Credit: Georgetown University/Art Pittman
Hispanic voters have historically favored Democrats in national and local elections. The panelists noted, however, that Republicans have been faring better with Latinos in recent elections and polls, giving credence to predictions that the Hispanic vote is no longer a monolith.
Recent polling on Hispanics backs up this theory. Newsweek reported this week that while Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is still leading among Hispanics by a wide margin, 56% to 38%, her lead has shrunk from the 59% Joe Biden held in 2020 and even further from the 66% held by Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Instead of loyalty to a party, panelists said Hispanics appear motivated mostly by their family values and concern for the poor and downtrodden.
Father Agustino Torres, a priest with the New York-based Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, said that in his ministry to young Latinos he has witnessed that Hispanic youth “have this fire” for caring for the downtrodden, especially for poor migrants.
“Sometimes we’re American Catholics rather than Catholic Americans. We allow our politics to inform our faith rather than our faith informing our politics,” Torres said. “But this is the reality: I’m responsible for you and you’re responsible for me. If I see someone falling down on the sidewalk, like, I am obligated because of my baptism, and this is a good thing … This is the Gospel.”
Father Agustino Torres, a priest and member of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, pointed out that
“sometimes we’re American Catholics rather than Catholic Americans. We allow our politics to inform our faith rather than our faith informing our politics.” Credit: Peter Pinedo/CNA
“When we teach this, they are just like, ‘yes,’ and it unites their worlds, family, faith, outreach,” he said.
To be clear, like most Americans, U.S. Hispanics are most concerned with the economy. EWTN published a poll of U.S. Catholics in September that found that most of the country’s Hispanic Catholics — 56.8% — said the economy (including jobs, inflation, and interest rates) is the most important issue deciding their vote this election cycle.
The next-highest priorities were border security/immigration at 10.5%, abortion at 9.7%, health care at 5.3%, and climate change at 5%.
Yet, according to panelist Santiago Ramos, a Catholic philosopher at the Aspen Institute, even when it comes to their approach to economic issues, Hispanics do not easily fit into the political right or left.
Ramos said Hispanics challenge the “nationalist, right-wing” as well as progressivist categorizations.
“There is a community aspect to our existence, family-oriented, dare I call it socially conservative aspect to our existence that doesn’t always mesh with mainstream liberal institutions,” he explained. “So, there are all sorts of ways that we pop up in American politics and force people to see things they don’t want to see.”
Among new voters, Hispanics loom large
Aleja Hertzler-McCain, a reporter on Latino faith and American Catholicism for Religion News Service, pointed out that half of the new voters who have become eligible to vote since 2020 are Hispanic.
According to the Pew Research Center, there will be 36.2 million eligible Hispanic voters this year, up almost 4 million from 2020. While noting that U.S. Hispanics historically have low voter turnout, Hertzler said the sheer volume of new Hispanic voters could have a “big impact” on the election.
Whatever the outcome of the election, Garcia said she is “really excited” to see the Hispanic community have its voice heard in the democratic process.
“I can’t wait to see that. I’m really excited about the election for that particular reason,” she said.
“The beauty of our culture,” Garcia went on, “is we can draw from our own experiences growing up with big families, big celebrations, and also with our faith that draws us to relationship with one another. And I think that is where we can sense how [concern for] the common good is not only something that comes from God but comes from our culture as well.”
That is one scary looking dude – and the fact that he is only 18 makes it more so.
Maybe he can be converted.
Needs to regain his sanity first.