Safety & Security

Friends, peace be with you. 

Last Sunday, I went home to be with my Mom for Mother’s Day. At first, my siblings were there but they had to leave to get back to their houses. I visited with my Mom and brother, Dave, for a while before they turned on the evening news. The top story was about a teen who showed up to St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Church in Abbeville, Louisiana with a gun apparently intending to hurt people. I watched the livestream reaction of the priest standing behind the altar unsure of what to do while the altar servers in cassock in surplus ran from one side of the sanctuary to the other escorted by armed police. I watch the priest and deacons duck below the marble altar. I kept asking myself how I would react in a similar situation. 

Whenever anything like this happens, I think of a conversation I had with a Coptic Archbishop outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. I was there in the Fall of 2000, when there was fighting between Israelis and Palestinians, though not as severe as the current situation. There was one day when we heard gunshots in the old city where we were living and many of us started asking if it was time for us to go home. Archbishop Abraham, a man from a different branch of the tree of Christianity not even in communion with us but who was the landlord of the building in which we lived, sought us out. He told us to stay because the whole purpose of terrorism is to get us to change the way we live and the way to fight it is to keep going about our daily lives as best we can. He told us not to put ourselves in undue danger but also not to become paralyzed by fear. 

It made sense to me then and it makes sense to me now. I’m not sure why this young man decided he was going to approach a Catholic Church apparently intending to hurt people. But, I would hate it if we allowed him to make us change our practices in such a way that it makes people feel unwelcome. We are never completely safe and secure. Look at what we put in the middle of every Catholic Church: an image of a dead man hanging from an instrument of torture. We prize the lives of those Christians who gave their lives as martyrs. We recognize that there is a degree of risk to life. Bishop Barron had an excellent podcast entitled “Is Safety Culture Good for Us?” He notes that while terms like “safe spaces,” “trigger warnings,” “harm reduction,” “micro-aggression,” “emotional wellbeing” and “fragility” are common in culture, the church prioritizes faith, hope, and love above all. 

Nonetheless, there are some steps that we can take to protect ourselves without dramatically altering our parish. For example, I encourage active and retired law enforcement officials to be armed during Mass but I ask others not to carry simply because of training and identification of good versus bad guys. Also, please keep in mind that church violence is still a rarity. You have a much better chance of getting shot walking in Chicago than you do coming to church.  Lastly, we’ll be working with our ushers and other willing people on how to identify and deal with potential threats that happen in church. My prayer is that this will keep our minds and hearts focused on our Lord Jesus Christ and not worried about our safety.