Hate and Violence are the Devil’s Handiwork.

I may not write specifically about the latest mass shooting. I’ve been dealing with the tragic death of a close family friend, a young person who should have had their life ahead of them, and that makes this terrible tragedy too painful. 

I am so sorry for the lives that were taken Saturday. It echoes the shooting in a black church a few months ago. Like them, these people were gathered in their house of worship, and they were shot and killed by a man who attacked them simply for being who they were. Hate and violence are the devil’s handiwork.  

When we play host to these things, we are opening the door of our hearts to satan and inviting him to come in and take up residence. There are a lot of people in this country who, while they didn’t walk into that synagogue and shoot anybody, have helped to create the atmosphere of lies, anger, and demagoguery that  fuels these things.  

You didn’t walk into that synagogue and shoot innocent people. But if you participate in vicious on-line carrying on and if you cheer politicians and media band-leaders who lie, degrade people and engage in vicious rhetoric, you are feeding the beast that bred the mind that decided to do the shooting. 

There is a reason why I have never allowed hate talk on my blog. It wasn’t because I enjoyed monitoring comments or hearing all about how I was attacking someone’s “freedom of speech.” 

I did it because I will never allow my blog to be used to promote the kind of vulgar hate-talk that is so rampant in our on-line world today. I didn’t start this thing to do harm.

Things have become so heated that I closed comments on Public Catholic.

I cannot stop the hate talk that is feeding the destruction of the social contract in this great nation. But I will not play host to it.

Exercise your free choice. Choose the good.