108-Year-Old Catholic Church Burns To The Ground, Man Charged With Arson

A 68-year-old man is in custody on an arson charge after a historic Catholic church in eastern Canada was reduced to ashes on Monday.

Gilles Mallet of Saint-Simon, New Brunswick, was arrested Monday after the blaze consumed Saint-Simon Catholic Church, a more than century-old landmark on the Acadian Peninsula. In its news release announcing the arrest, New Brunswick RCMP said the Office of the Fire Marshal had determined the fire was intentionally set.

The church was unoccupied when the fire began. Firefighters responded shortly after 4 a.m., but flames had already spread through the sacristy and into the roof. The building was ultimately declared a total loss, while four neighboring homes suffered heat damage. No one was injured.

Mallet appeared in Bathurst Provincial Court on Monday and was remanded into custody. His bail hearing is scheduled for Friday.

The destruction devastated a community that regarded the wooden church as far more than a place of worship. Caraquet Mayor Bernard Theriault said the church was the last major institution in Saint-Simon that had been built by and for the community.

“It was a gathering place — it was the soul and the heart of Saint-Simon,” local resident Monica Albert Légère told EWTN News.

Bishop Michel Proulx of Bathurst called the destruction an “immeasurable loss,” remembering the baptisms, weddings, and funerals celebrated there across generations. The church, started as a mission in 1910 and completed in 1918, was the largest remaining wooden church in New Brunswick.

Although authorities have not connected Monday’s fire to any broader trend or publicly identified Mallet’s motive, the destruction comes after years of elevated arson attacks against religious institutions across Canada.

A 2025 study by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute found that arson attacks against religious institutions more than doubled in 2021 compared with the pre-2021 baseline and have not substantially declined since.

The surge coincided with a national controversy that began with now-debunked claims of unmarked graves at former Indigenous residential schools, many of which had been operated by Catholic institutions. The claims generated intense public anger and were followed by a wave of attacks on churches.

Updated Statistics Canada data released in 2025 showed that arsons at religious institutions remained high in 2024, at nearly twice the baseline level recorded before 2021. Of 306 arsons at religious institutions from 2021 through 2024, 53 resulted in charges.

The report called for a more coordinated approach to investigating arsons at religious sites, including greater cooperation among police and fire authorities and improvements to Indigenous police and fire services.

Authorities have not said whether Mallet’s alleged actions were motivated by religion or connected to the increase in church arsons. The investigation remains ongoing.