Bishop Donald Kettler of St. Cloud called for prayers for peace and justice in the wake of the shooting of police officers July 7 near the end of a demonstration in Dallas and the fatal shootings by police officers in Baton Rouge and Falcon Heights, Minnesota, earlier in the week.
In a statement July 8, the bishop asked people to remember those who were killed and their loved ones. “I also ask you to pray for healing in our nation and wisdom for our leaders to address the fear, anger and divisions that exist in our society,” he said.
“Our faith teaches us that black lives matter, police officers’ lives matter — every life matters, because every human life is sacred,” Bishop Kettler said. “We are all children of God, created in his image and likeness, no matter the color of our skin, the country we come from or the faith we profess.”
In this Year of Mercy proclaimed by Pope Francis, the bishop encouraged every person to ask themselves a series of questions: “What is one thing I can do to promote peace and justice in my neighborhood, school, community or city? How can I eliminate racist attitudes and prejudices that might have taken root in my own heart and mind? How can I build relationships with people who don’t look, act or believe as I do?
“Through such efforts,” he said, “we will foster reassurance instead of fear, unity instead of division, and reconciliation instead of conflict. May our actions be signs of hope for all.”
Other bishops issued similar statements.
“To all people of goodwill, let us beg for the strength to resist the hatred that blinds us to our common humanity,” said Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, in a July 8 statement.
The archbishop described the sniper attack on the Dallas police officers as “an act of unjustifiable evil.”
He said the “police are not a faceless enemy” but people offering their lives to protect others. He also noted that “the suspects in crimes or routine traffic stops are not just a faceless threat” but members of families in “need of assistance, protection and fairness.”
“When compassion does not drive our response to the suffering of either, we have failed one another,” Archbishop Kurtz said.
He said the tragic shootings are reminders of the need to “place ever greater value on the life and dignity of all persons, regardless of their station in life,” and he hoped that in the days ahead people would look to ways of having open, honest and civil dialogue on issues of race relations, restorative justice, mental health, economic opportunity, and addressing the question of pervasive gun violence.”
Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago said: “Every corner of our land is in the grip of terror fueled by anger, hatred and mental illness and made possible by plentiful, powerful weapons.”
“It is time to break the cycle of violence and retaliation, of fear and powerlessness that puts more guns in our homes and on our streets,” he said in a statement.
Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik said: “If someone does something violent, it is imperative for us to reach out to each other in kindness and with respect and refrain from blanket condemnations. We must build bridges. We must tear down walls. We must break the cycle of violence.”
He also called on people to recognize that each person is an individual. “We must not judge any person based on their race or color, their national origin, their faith tradition, their politics, their sexual orientation, their job, their vocation, their uniform.”
Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky, said the shootings should cause us to ask God “to show us the way to peace and how to live in harmony with each other.”
He urged Christians to be “people of hope promoting reconciliation in a very violent world” and asked: “How much more killing must we witness before sensibly and rationally addressing the prevalence of guns, the inequalities in access to justice and the violence found in human hearts?”
In Dallas, the suspected sniper — who had held dozens of SWAT officers at bay for several hours by saying that there were bombs planted around the area, that “the end was coming” and that he would take down more officers — was killed overnight when police sent a robot toward him and detonated an explosive device attached to the robot.
Neither the dead suspect, nor three others arrested shortly after the shootings, would be identified because police said they were continuing their investigation.
The five officers — four from the Dallas Police Department and one from the Dallas Area Rapid Transit — were shot around 9 p.m. local time by snipers who targeted law enforcement officials from a parking garage. The five dead were among 12 officers and two civilians wounded.
The June 7 march in Dallas was organized to show support for families of two men killed earlier in the week in officer-related shootings in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Falcon Heights, Minnesota.
In Baton Rouge, Alton Sterling, 37, was killed July 5 by police during an altercation outside a convenience store after witnesses said that he had a gun. In Falcon Heights, Philando Castile was fatally shot after a traffic stop on July 6.
The Visitor and Catholic News Service contributed to this story.