Bishop Bradley expresses sorrow over tragic shooting in Texas

Bishop Bradley expresses sorrow over tragic shooting in Texas
                                                                                                   
KALAMAZOO, Mich.: (November 5, 2017):  Bishop Bradley released the following statement following the tragic shooting today in Sutherland Springs, Texas, that has claimed the lives of at least 25 people:
 
“The despicable and merciless attack on people in the most sacred space of a House of God on a Sunday morning in the small Texas town of Sutherland Springs almost defies our ability to comprehend or accept.  Approximately 25 people----men, women and children--- were murdered at point blank range, while dozens of others were injured, many of them critically.  We are heartbroken and abhorred by this senseless act of violence.  On behalf of the Diocese of Kalamazoo, as a community that knows first-hand the horror of an unwarranted violent attack on innocent lives, we express our solidarity, with the families of those who have lost loved ones, and all those who have been injured and traumatized by the events of this day.  We promise you our prayers for God’s mercy for those who have died and God’s healing graces for those who are suffering in any way.
 
“As Cardinal DiNardo, the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and as Archbishop of Galveston-Houston in Texas states so beautifully (see USCCB statement), we must realize that “there is a fundamental problem in our society”.  However, in addition to the gun violence to which Cardinal DiNardo was referring, there is also a fundamental problem with a widespread failure of more and more people to understand our common dignity as fellow human beings, each of us made in the image and likeness of God, which makes all of us sisters and brothers in the human family.  While we pray for an end to violence in all its forms, and as our hearts are united with all our sisters and brothers in Sutherland Springs,Texas on this day of unspeakable loss and sadness, let us also pray that God will help us to be healed of the blindness that keeps us from seeing one another clearly, and from the hard-heartedness that keeps us from treating one another with compassion, respect and dignity.”