The murder of children is a sin that cries to heaven for vengeance. If something like Wednesday’s bloodletting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis had happened only once in our nation’s history, it would be the kind of thing to stop every one of us dead in our tracks. Yet it’s happening with regularity, and the great American spectacle keeps rolling along.
The sad reality is that the shock of Minneapolis wore off by kickoff on Saturday. College football is back. Pumpkin spice is coming. Life rumbles on.
I don’t say this to shame you. I’m as guilty as anyone of avoidance and distraction. The daily pressures of household and work are relentless. They demand attention. But snap out of it. Remind yourself that in the United States of America a madman killed two children and wounded 18 in a church attached to a school. It was less than a week ago. Remember, if you can, how your first thought was to wonder what it would feel like if it had been your children in those pews, diving for cover as stained glass rained down around them—your children in a complete panic, your children crying out in fear, your children lying dead in pools of blood.
What is to be done? Complacency in the face of such evil is unforgivable.
Arming teachers isn’t the solution. That’s too much to ask of those whose greatest joy in life is to see the pride of accomplishment in a child’s eyes. I’m not one to put a halo on teachers, but I can’t see the wisdom in putting holsters on them either. That’s a road we could go down only after first admitting that something essential about America has been permanently broken. Kids deserve to learn in pleasant and inviting environments, not behind fortress walls.