Catholic Reading Wednesday

With many thanks to our wonderful and insightful curator, Karen Celano, you can delve into a faith-related news article each Wednesday! Karen writes:

On June 12, two priests in Arizona were attacked in their rectory at Mater Misericordia Mission Catholic Church in Phoenix, Arizona, during a botched robbery. One priest died in the attack; the other was initially in critical condition but was recently moved out of intensive care. The recently-released 911 tapes reveal the surviving priest, Fr. Joseph Terra, trying to save the life of his 28-year-old assistant, Fr. Kenneth Walker, and ultimately administering last rites to his colleague, who died on the way to the hospital.

The assailant, who was arrested on Sunday, was a homeless man who had a history of violent crime and had recently been released from prison. The funeral mass for Fr. Walker was held on Monday, during which local city councilman Michael Nowakowski expressed his conviction that, had Fr. Walker lived, he would have wanted to “help and pray for those individuals who are released from jail.”

In the wake of this attack, the Christian Science Monitor reports that this episode is the “latest in more than 780 deadly attacks in US places of worship in the past 15 years.” Most of these attacks stem from robbery attempts, although some have also been mass shootings, such as the 1999 attack at Wedgwood Baptist Church in Texas and the 2007 attack at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs.

These episodes, combined with ongoing coverage of mass shootings in schools and escalating gun violence around the country, have drawn the church into a moral discussion about how best to stem the tide of killings. In his general audience on Wednesday, June 11, Pope Francis condemned arms manufacturers as “merchants of death” who “make death into a trade.” In 2012, in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook school shooting, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops made a statement calling on legislators to “address national policies that will strengthen the regulation of firearms and improve access to health care for those with mental health needs.” Some Catholics took issue with the bishops’ statement, especially when the bishops argued, quoting the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, that limiting access to firearms “would certainly not infringe on the rights of anyone.”

In the past month, other Catholics, such as Representative Timothy Murphy of Pennsylvania, have, in the wake of the shooting in Santa Barbara, fought for comprehensive mental health care reform that would make it easier to commit individuals for involuntary outpatient care and would amend privacy laws to allow family members more access to mental health records. Murphy’s bill has, of course, caused debate, with some arguing that it is necessary to improve public safety, while others accuse Murphy of “opportunism” and believe that his bill would serve only to violate the rights of the mentally ill.

In a more quiet way, many Catholics are ministering to those in prison or recently released from prison, trying to give convicts and former convicts a sense of faith, hope, and self-worth that may prevent them from returning to criminal behavior. The St. Joseph Cafasso Prison Ministries of St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Alpharetta,Georgia, sends volunteers to minister to prisoners at Arrendale State Prison, where RCIA classes are taught and sacraments are administered. The Dismas House in Nashville, Tennessee, continues its work of giving “men just released from prison a place to live and help readjusting to society.”

Given the cyclical connection between homelessness, mental illness, and criminal behavior – a connection that seems well-demonstrated in last week’s attack on Fr. Terra and Fr. Walker – certainly we as a society and a church need to find more comprehensive, holistic ways of dealing with these problems. In the absence of a willingness to compromise, however, progress seems to be stalled on all levels. Let us pray for our leaders as they search for answers on a policy-wide level, and let us also pray for the courage to reach out to the homeless, the mentally ill, and the victims of violence in our own lives and communities.