When a demented coward shot into a church sanctuary full of kids in Minneapolis on August 27th, the act of unspeakable cruelty shocked a state heartbroken and hardened by years of increasing “senseless” violence.
After an act of terrorism, politicians have developed a familiar protocol that begins with an understated call for prayer and calm in the immediate aftermath. It grows out of convention, shock and consideration for the victims and their families.
The horrific act of terror at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, only two months after the assassination of Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, seemed to cut whatever tethered leaders to such a somber response. “Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now! These kids were literally praying!” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in the hours after the attack. For reasons obvious to anyone with situational awareness, the mayor and others who followed his lead experienced instantaneous blow-back.
As if to anticipate the argument, the shooter wrote “Where is your God?” on one of his ammunition magazines. Frey must first accept the painful fact that these children were targeted because of their prayers, not despite them.
As the Walz administration attempts to stake out positions for a “just do something” special session to address this act of terror, they seem not to notice the broken thing that most needs fixing. The fact that Walz called for a special session without talking to the House Speaker makes the average Joe and Jane think this could just be political theater. Even if that is so, Jacob Frey (and the people attacking him) may help better define the problem.
A charitable interpretation of Frey’s comments would extend the grace to allow for his frustration with empty gestures of prayer from people who don’t pray all that much. Who hasn’t bristled at the emptiness of a “#thoughtsandprayers” response from an unserious politician in the wake of violence?
Prominent Minnesota Bishop Robert Barron called Frey’s comments “asinine” noting “Prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God, which strikes me as altogether appropriate precisely at times of great pain, and prayer by no means stands in contrast to decisive moral action.” But in 2023, Frey signed a resolution making Minneapolis the first major city in America to allow the broadcast of the Muslim call to prayer five times a day, so he is literally a national leader when it comes to prayer.
Churches and other banks of social capital traditionally have helped people avoid antisocial behaviors from isolation to murder. If you believe Mayor Frey is sincere, you must conclude that he has either lost trust in some kinds of religion, or that he is missing something. I believe it is the latter.
In his essay, “Letter to an Innocent Bystander,” the Trappist monk Thomas Merton noted, “But nevertheless one of the awful facts of our age is the evidence that it is stricken indeed, stricken to the very core of its being by the presence of the Unspeakable.” The Unspeakable for Merton represents a level of deviancy so dark that it can’t be understood without acknowledging deformity in the social contract. Merton would now note that what happened in Minneapolis is part of that Unspeakable.
Perhaps that is so. Something is broken in Minnesota. This didn’t used to happen.
While the media searches for motive in the senseless act, they predictably avoid the words of the perpetrator. In videos and a written manifesto, the perpetrator, Robin Westman spells out in detail why and how these children would die. They were targeted because of their innocence. They were targeted because they were practicing their faith.
“I am not well. I am not right. I am a sad person, haunted by these thoughts that do not go away” Robin Westman said in his suicide manifesto. An understanding of how Westman got to that awful, evil place isn’t going to be addressed in a “just do something” special session.
