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Catholic priest ambushed, stabbed multiple times in ‘frenzied’ attack

Published

10 months ago

10 minute read

Fr. Paul Murphy, Irish Army Chaplain (credit: Catholic Arena / X)

From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

There are now concerns that the teenager became radicalized online and that he had a specific grievance and plan to target Defence Forces members. 

A Catholic priest, who serves as a chaplain in the Irish Army, was ambushed and stabbed “multiple times” in a “frenzied attack” on Thursday night in Galway, Ireland – which saw Irish soldiers open fire in response. Initial reports said a “teenage male youth” had been detained, who reportedly “uttered statements about Irish military involvement in the Middle East.”

Virgin Media News issued the following report on the violent assault today: 

Father Paul Murphy, a 52 year old Chaplain with the Irish Army, was stabbed outside Renmore Barracks, Galway in the West of Ireland at around 10:45 p.m. last night as he arrived for duty in his car. 

Fr. Paul Murphy, Irish Army Chaplain (credit: Catholic Arena / X)

Fr. Murphy was seriously injured, but survived the attack – sending a message from Galway’s University Hospital as he awaits surgery.  

He thanked people in a Facebook post on Friday for their “prayers, love and concern.”

I’m doing okay: just awaiting surgery. All will be well.

According to the Irish Mirror, police are investigating whether the incident was terror related. 

The Special Detective Unit of An Garda Síochána [Irish police] is involved in this investigation. One line of enquiry is to establish if this attack had a terrorism motivation.

Irish Mirror journalist Paul Healy reported details of the attack:

It is understood Fr. Murphy was sitting in his car waiting for the barracks gates to open when the attacker approached him.  

Sources say the chaplain lowered his window and the attacker immediately stabbed him multiple times. 

Healy goes on to recount how Fr. Murphy tried to escape, stating:

The gates of the barracks then opened and Fr. Murphy is understood to have driven forward in an effort to get away from the stabber. 

The attacker however clung onto the vehicle and continued to try and attack Fr. Murphy. 

Sources say Gardaí [police] have since searched the suspect’s address in the Galway area and a number of items of interest, including radicalized ‘literature’ were recovered. 

There are now concerns that the teenager became radicalized online and that he had a specific grievance and plan to target Defence Forces members. 

Healy further reports that “online social media posts” made by the suspect are now being reviewed. 

The suspect, described as “Irish” and said to be 16-years-old, “remains in detention and is being questioned in a Gardaí station in the North Western region,” according to the Irish Examiner.  

Their report says how “sentries overpowered the youth and detained him” until police arrived, noting that, “Fr. Murphy was provided with first aid at the scene before being taken to hospital where he received further treatment.” 

A soldier who had served with Fr. Murphy on a tour of duty in Lebanon responded with shock and words of admiration for the Padre. 

Brendan Cruise said on X:

I was fortunate enough to have served in Lebanon with Fr Paul Murphy who was the battalion padre. He was absolutely brilliant on the tour, he had time for everyone & a smile for all. Wishing him a full recovery.

Simon Harris, the Taoiseach [Irish Prime Minister] said his “thoughts are with the victim” and thanked the Defence Forces and Gardaí for their action and response in a post on X.  

Irish users of the social media platform responded angrily, with many holding Harris and the government responsible. 

One user replied to Harris saying, “You’ve brought terror back to this Island, after we fought 800 years to live in peace.”

Others noted the Godlessness of the modern Irish state, remarking the deliberate omission of the fact that the victim is a Catholic priest and that no prayers were being offered by the leader of the Catholic nation.  

“Very telling you won’t say a Catholic priest was attacked and you offer no prayers for him.”  

The sentiment in the replies to the Irish Prime Minister were perhaps summarized best in this meme:

Attacks on Catholics and their places of worship have been on the rise in Ireland. A spate of anti-Catholic crime in County Donegal over the summer saw many churches burgled, with damage and attempted arson occuring. One church in Lifford had been targeted three times in six weeks.  

The Protestant Church of Ireland has also been targeted, with historic and “irreplaceable” mummies damaged following a break-in and attempted arson in St Michan’s Church, Dublin in June.  

The vandalism, according to Dublin Live, is believed to have ruined the mummified remains of five Catholics “including an 800-year-old artifact known as ‘The Crusader.’” A Romanian national was found guilty of the damage. 

Yet the attacks have also been linked to hate speech – not online – but made by Irish politicians themselves.  

In April, reporting on arson attacks on two County Meath churches, Catholic Arena alleged:

Hate speech by politicians against Catholics has been a major factor in the recent rise in crime against Catholic. 

The attempts to burn down these two churches came shortly after an Irish Member of Parliament (TD) was “mocked for her Catholic faith” by her fellow members during a speech given in the Parliament itself, known as the Dáil. 

Gript reported on March 23 how Deputy Carol Nolan’s warning that mass migration policies of the Irish government had created chaos in the country.

“We have an immigration system and an immigrant homeless situation that are nothing short of spiralling social sabotage,” Nolan said. 

“This Government has no answers for one simple reason, it is because it does not ask the right questions and it does not listen.”  

Nolan was reportedly “sniggered at” at by members she referred to as “communists,” who she says derided her and other members for their Christian faith – whilst refusing to acknowledge the chaos their open borders policies were causing.  

“I could hear the comments and the muttering – some TDs were definitely mocking our Catholic faith”  

Nolan claimed the anti-Catholic rhetoric emerged over Ireland’s referendum on abortion, when she says was targeted for being pro-life. She explained: 

Unfortunately, I had this trouble before the abortion referendum, and when I called for a ‘No’ vote [to legalising abortion]…so it’s not the first time I have borne the brunt of that type of sentiment.

Nolan said:

I would get a lot of it, and I got a lot of it because it was evident I was pro-life and because of my beliefs.

She remained defiant in the face of this “bullying,” saying Parliament refused to reflect a majority of Irish people whose lives and livelihoods in tourism have been blighted by uncontrolled mass migration.  

“In advance of Holy Week, we will take no lectures from the hard left and the looney left who will not face the people.” 

The comments in the Irish Parliament came weeks after a priest’s house was set ablaze “intentionally” in Kildare, destroying outbuildings at St Brigid’s Cathedral. 

The attacks on the Catholic faith and on Christianity in Ireland have now seemingly escalated to the attempted murder of a priest.

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conflict

Victor Davis Hanson Makes a Disturbing Prediction About What Happens If Iran Survives

Published on June 20, 2025

By

Amidst rough seas, you need a steady sailor.

Historian and classicist Victor Davis Hanson just delivered a masterful breakdown of the Iran conflict with clarity few can match.

Not just what’s happening, but what’s coming next.

“I think we’re going to see things that we haven’t seen in our lifetime in the Middle East,” he said.

This could go one of two ways, neither is small.

Victor Davis Hanson isn’t known for hyperbole. So when he opens with a warning like this, people pay attention:

“We are at an historic time in the Middle East,” he said.

“Never in our lifetimes have we been closer to a complete revolutionary fervor that gives promise of normalcy for the Middle East. And never have we been in more danger of seeing the entire region blow up.”

The paradox is striking.

Peace may be closer than ever, but so is total collapse.

And at the center of it all is the unfolding conflict between Iran and Israel, which Hanson called “surreal.”

Reflecting on the rapid collapse of Iran’s regional dominance, Hanson admitted that even a few years ago, this moment would have been unthinkable.

“If we had this conversation five years ago,” he said, “and I said to you, the Iranian nation that is huge compared to Israel, ten times the population, the Iranian nation has lost all control of the Houthi terrorists, and they are themselves neutered…”

He pointed to a chain reaction across the region: Iran’s proxy forces in Gaza and the West Bank have been neutralized. Hezbollah, once a feared military force, is now dormant.

“They’re gone as a Hamas, as a fighting force. The formidable, the terrifying Hezbollah cadres, they’re inert.”

The chaos in Syria, once a stronghold of Iranian influence, now seems to be working against Tehran.

“There is no more Syria, the Assad dynasty, the pro-Iranian, the Syria. It’s in chaos. But whatever the chaos is, seems to be anti-Iranian.”

The collapse is strategic, not just symbolic. Hanson noted that the so-called “Shia crescent” connecting Tehran to the Mediterranean is no longer intact.

“Lebanon is free of Iranian influence. So is Syria. Gaza, a de facto, will be.”

Even Russia, once a key ally, is no longer a player in the region.

“It’s tied down in Ukraine,” he said.

“Iran itself, the formidable powerhouse of the Middle East that evoked terror all over, has no defenses.”

Over the course of just five days, Israel has launched a targeted military campaign to dismantle Iran’s strategic infrastructure.

According to Hanson, the damage has been sweeping.

“They have dismantled all of the Iranian missile defenses. They have dismantled the terrorist hierarchy. They have dismantled the people who are responsible for the nuclear program.”

And yet, there’s risk.

“The Iranians have sent over 400 ballistic missiles and drones into Israel,” he said, “and 90 percent are stop. But that 10 percent gets through.”

Which brings us to the turning point.

All of this only matters if it ends with Iran’s theocracy on the brink of collapse.

If it doesn’t, everything that’s been gained could be erased.

“All of this chaos and all of this war will be for not if Iran’s theocracy emerges intact from this war.”

Even more dangerous, he added, would be a scenario in which the country’s nuclear infrastructure survives or can be quickly rebuilt.

That possibility has triggered one of the most urgent strategic questions on the table: Can Israel finish the job?

Or will it need help from the United States to strike Iran’s deeply buried nuclear facilities?

This is where things get complicated.

Under the “America First” foreign policy doctrine, Trump has been clear: no more forever wars, no more ground troops in the Middle East.

But Hanson argued that Trump’s actions tell a deeper story.

“I’m not an isolationist, I’m a Jacksonian,” he said, echoing what Trump might say.

“You should have known that when I took out Soleimani… when I took out Baghdadi… when I took out the Wagner Group.”

The message? Trump doesn’t go looking for wars. But when deterrence is at stake, he’s not afraid to act decisively.

Still, Hanson posed a chilling question: what if the Iranian regime survives?

“If this war should end with the Iranian regime intact and the elements of its nuclear program recoverable,” he warned, “then in some ways it will be all for naught.”

Despite Iran’s military losses, its media destruction and its isolated position, surviving such a coordinated strike could give it something even more powerful than weapons: perceived invincibility.

“It will be more like, oh my gosh, Iran survived everything that Israel, and by association the United States, threw at it.”

“It’s indestructible.”

And that, Hanson suggested, would be the real danger.

Not just a return to the status quo, but a shift in perception that emboldens the regime and reshapes the balance of power across the region.

Now the question hanging over the entire conflict is this: does the world play it safe and allow remnants of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure to survive?

Or risk a final strike that could eliminate the threat for good, but possibly trigger even greater instability?

“Do you risk more danger by taking out and eliminating the nuclear threat for good,” Hanson asked, “and by association, you humiliate the theocracy to the point it can be overthrown?”

That’s the gamble.

He didn’t shy away from his own discomfort with war.

“I don’t like forever wars,” he added.

“I don’t like preemptive wars. I do not like the United States intervening anywhere in that godforsaken area. But if the war ends with the regime intact and a recoverable nuclear program, it won’t just be back to square one. It will be a disaster.”

That’s when he dropped a bombshell prediction of the future in the area after the dust settles in the desert.

Whether this ends in collapse or resurgence, Hanson believes the next phase of the war could reshape the entire region and the world’s understanding of power in the Middle East.

“So we’ll see what happens,” he said.

“And hold on, everybody. I think we’re going to see things that we haven’t seen in our lifetime in the Middle East. And it could turn out very bad.”

“But it could also turn out to be quite revolutionary and remake the map of the entire region.”

This story was made possible with the help of Overton —I couldn’t have done it without him.

If you’d like to support his growing network, consider subscribing for the month or the year. Your support helps him expand his team and cover more stories like this one.

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Trump dismisses US intelligence that Iran wasn’t pursuing nuclear bomb before Israeli attack

Published on June 18, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Dave DeCamp

When asked about Tulsi Gabbard’s assessment, President Trump said, ‘I don’t care what she said. I think they’re very close to having [a nuclear weapon].’

Ahead of Israel’s attacks on Iran, U.S. intelligence assessed that Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons and that even if it chose to do so, it would take up to three years for Tehran to be able to produce and deliver a nuclear bomb against a target of its choosing, CNN reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the intelligence.

The U.S. assessment goes against the claims from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who launched the war under the pretext of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. But President Trump appears to be taking Israel’s word over his own intelligence agencies, as he told reporters that he didn’t care about his director of national intelligence’s assessment on the issue.

In March, DNI Tulsi Gabbard said that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” Her assessment was reflected in the Intelligence Community’s annual threat assessment.

When asked about this assessment, President Trump said, “I don’t care what she said. I think they’re very close to having [a nuclear weapon].”

Netanyahu claimed in an interview on Sunday that he shared intelligence with the U.S. that Iran could have developed a nuclear weapon within months or a year, although that was not the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies, based on the CNN report. But even based on Netanyahu’s own timeline, the U.S. would have had time to continue negotiations with Iran.

Israel attacked Iran two days before another round of negotiations between the U.S. and Iran was set to be held. Trump had been demanding that Iran eliminate its nuclear enrichment program, which was a non-starter for Tehran. Despite the apparent impasse, Iran was set to present a counter-proposal to the U.S., but the talks were canceled after Israel launched its war.

Reprinted with permission from Antiwar.com.

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