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The man charged with burning down the largest wooden church in New Brunswick has, on his own Facebook page, a tribute to a radical friend who went to jail for fighting a pipeline.

And on a video of that church burning — I’ve listened to it myself — a voice says that friend’s name, and then: “Your wish has come true.”

I need to tell you how I know that, because it changes what I said last week about this church fire. I think it’s much worse now.

On August 24th, at about 3:30 in the morning, the Saint-Simon Catholic Church — built in 1917 by the great-grandparents of the people who still live there — went up in flames. Four fire departments came. It was wood. It was gone in two hours. Only the chimney is standing.

I flew to Moncton and drove three-and-a-half hours to see it for myself. I stood in the ashes with Claudette, the co-president of the parish council.

She cried when the steeple came down. Here’s my report from that visit:

The RCMP made a fast arrest — credit to them, that doesn’t always happen with church fires. Gilles Mallet, 68, from Saint-Simon itself. A parishioner himself! “He was at Mass with us,” Claudette told me. Charged with arson, remanded in custody. His bail hearing was put over to Tuesday, September 8th.

Everyone in the village told me the same thing: one troubled man. Nothing bigger. I said on the show, fair enough — maybe.

But after my report, an insider wrote to us through our website. He said he knew Gilles Mallet — from British Columbia, where Mallet had lived for years in an Indigenous community near Lillooet. Our source said he himself had left that community because of what was being said there about Christians and the Church.

As in, Mallet had been stewing in anti-Christian propaganda. Our source asked us never to reveal who he is. We won’t.

But Mallet wasn’t exactly hiding who he’d become. On Facebook he posted a picture of himself standing beside a war canoe. He’s wearing a red shirt that says “WARRIOR UP! — Ta’ah said.” Ta’ah is Amy George, Chief Dan George’s daughter, who coined “Warrior Up” in 2012 as the battle cry against the Kinder Morgan pipeline. Her son is Rueben George, who has led the Tsleil-Waututh fight against Trans Mountain ever since.

Last year Mallet posted: “In honour of my friend Stacy Gallagher who’s in jail because of his fights against the pipeline.” He links to a video he made — “The Coast Salish Dragon, by Gilles Mallet (Baby Eagle).” Stacy Gallagher is a B.C. pipeline protester who was sentenced to 90 days in jail in 2021 for breaking the Trans Mountain injunction.

And his cover photo, from this January: Mallet in a gold Inca headdress and cuffs. His caption: “Inka chief.” Then February, “Hawaiian Chief.” Then April, Peru.

Obviously Mallet isn’t Peruvian or Hawaiian. But he “identifies” with Indigenous warriors fighting against Christianity. Now the video. It was posted to Mallet’s timeline a few days ago by someone in his circle. It’s the Saint-Simon church burning, shot from the road as the fire trucks pulled up. And the man holding the camera says: “Stacy Gallagher — your wish has come true.”

The friend he honoured in March. The pipeline fighter. And as the church burned — 'your wish has come true.' Someone else in Mallet’s circle wrote this, over a video of him at a ceremony: “They manipulated him to do their evil work. He told them he was going to do such things.” Our source told us the same thing, too: that Mallet told people beforehand. “No one stopped him.”

Being at a ceremony or wearing a slogan isn’t a crime. I don’t know what the “wish” was. But a man charged with burning a Catholic church to the ground wore a movement’s battle cry on his chest, honoured its jailed warrior, went deeper every month — and as the church burned, that warrior’s name was on somebody’s lips.

That’s not a random fire. That’s a fire with a story behind it.

We need to be back in New Brunswick on Tuesday — their court is open on Labour Day. Mallet is expected to apply for bail, and to enter a plea. I want to send Alexa Lavoie, because they speak French in Saint-Simon, and she will do much better than I did. My trip last week cost more than $1,500 — it’s expensive to go to small town New Brunswick. Rebel News doesn’t take a dime from Mark Carney’s media bailout — if we did, we wouldn’t be allowed to cover this story, would we?

If you want us to keep following this — all the way to wherever the facts lead — please help us at SaveOurChurches.ca. That’s SaveOurChurches.ca. Chip in whatever you can. And if you know something about Gilles Mallet, or Stacy Gallagher, or that Sundance camp, write to us there too. We’ll protect you, the way we’re protecting the man who wrote to us this week.

Claudette asked me, standing in the ashes: why do people go after our Catholic churches? She didn’t know. The mayor didn’t know. The bishop didn’t know. The police haven’t said. 

I think we’ve found a place to start looking. Help us look.