The Bishops of the Diocese of North Carolina Respond to Recent Shootings

We are outraged by the shootings that took place in a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, and a church in Laguna Woods, California, last weekend. We grieve the lives lost through the reprehensible actions of yet more gunmen guided by hate. Those of us who are white are reminded again that people of color are always dealing with a level of anxiety about being targets of violence. These most recent events create new trauma while triggering the old. Our entire community is heartbroken at these losses, though the weight of such loss does not impact each of us the same way.

It can be easy to feel overwhelmed when contemplating how to respond to it all, but it becomes less overwhelming when we proceed by remembering that every person is a child of God, each one is our sibling, and respecting their dignity begins with each and every one of us. We can also agree that even though we have individual freedom and rights, we also have a responsibility to our communities and each other.

We turn, then, to prayer. We pray for those who lost their lives in Buffalo and Laguna Woods, the friends and families who grieve, and for every person - anywhere - who feels unsafe. We pray and give thanks for those who responded, trying to save and comfort others. And, as the Rt. Rev. Sean Rowe, bishop of the Dioceses of Western New York and Northwestern Pennsylvania, recently called for, we must “pray, too, for the man [and others like him] who committed this horrific act, and for everyone whose mind and soul is twisted toward the evil of gun violence by racism.”

We pray for the strength to uphold the tenets of our baptismal covenant and the call to love one another. We pray for the constancy of God’s presence in every moment of our lives so that we may be guided in our thoughts and actions toward realizing God’s dream and our work of Becoming Beloved Community.

And we act. We work to ensure the basic rights of all are upheld, whether through civic action, ministry or the vocations to which we are called. We engage in conversation to deepen our understanding of each other, even when we don’t agree. We learn, about both our history and our present, to know what wrongs can be righted, what evils called out and what gifts are needed for today and the future. We reach deeper in our faith, to reaffirm and strengthen the foundation from which we live our lives, remembering the One who promises a better way and who walks with us even - and especially - when that path is long and fraught with challenge.

From A Litany in the Wake of a Mass Shooting

- Bishops United Against Gun Violence