What would you do if you see an aggressor hit a participant of your church program? During Mass last Sunday, a member of the Philadelphia Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, came to the front to read scriptures as part of the mass tradition. She finished reading and left the podium. As she walked toward her pew, she saw an intimidating woman in the aisle and felt there was going to be trouble. As the victim passed by the woman, the woman struck her twice in the face with solid back-handed fist blows. The audience and staff all froze. The attacker simply walked out of the church. Police found and arrested the attacker; then were instructed to let her go without charges. The parish priest later said he would have intervened had he been there, while defending those present who were not comfortable getting into such things. Watch the…
2020 August
When I was nine, we moved to a new house Dad built at the edge of town on our small farm. On the back of the house was a deck. There was no deck railing and the edge of the deck was about five feet above the ground below. I was throwing a tennis ball up on the roof and trying to catch it as it rolled back down before it hit the deck. Backing up, looking up on the roof to try and see where it would come down, I went too far back and right over the edge of the deck, falling flat on my back below. I woke up to two teenage girls leaning down beside me asking me if I could hear them. They had been riding bikes down our road and saw me fall. I had hit my head and had the wind knocked out…
Since the dawn of time there has been a roaring lion seeking to destroy good. He used to prowl like a shadow in the dark, but his attacks are now openly displayed every day. As the moral compass in America lost its own north, he crept into our sanctuaries. By the end of the 20th century, we were seeing too many violent attacks on concentrated defenseless groups to ignore it anymore. Lives have been taken and lives have been shattered by the immoral decay of the nation turned into violence in our most sacred places. Responsible defenders across America were compelled to do something about it. As the pages turned from the 20th to the 21st century, we began to hear the term, church security. At first, church security seemed a contradiction of terms to some. Enduring ridicule, lectures on passiveness, misrepresentation of scriptures (“turn the other cheek”) and cute…