Bishop Mariann Budde (who angered the Trump and Vance by suggesting they be compassionate) writes thoughtfully on the dark cloud of violence over our society today.
In the same weekend that the Pentagon promised to let us watch one man die by firing squad, an offer now thankfully rescinded, a Philadelphia police officer, the father of two small children, was shot dead on a porch, and eight people were killed in a home in Erie, among them a one-year-old and a pregnant woman. Erie Police Chief Rick Lorah said that the crime scene was the worst one he had seen in twenty-eight years.
Events that would have once dominated the news cycle for days passed by with little notice. Chief Lorah’s words are also a sobering reminder of what witnessing gun violence is like, an argument that retired Admiral Henry McRaven made when voicing his opposition to live-streaming a firing squad execution.
There is no direct connection between the debate about how many should watch Nidal Malik Hasan die for killing thirteen people at Fort Hood military base in 2009 and those who died by gun violence in Pennsylvania. Except that the specter of violence is seemingly everywhere, and we are not the better for it. As our Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe wrote about the proposed livestreaming, it would “cause moral injury to everyone involved.”
A Plea for Restraint: On Violence, Spectacle, and Human Dignitymariannbudde.substack.com“I am among those who believe that the death penalty, however exercised, is contrary to the teachings of Jesus.”