Law enforcement officers in Boulder, Colo., sweep the parking lot at the site of a shooting at a King Soopers grocery store March 22, 2021. (CNS photo/Kevin Mohatt, Reuters)
In the wake of the March 23rd killing of ten people at the King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, two Catholic bishops quickly responded with words of solace. They prayed for the victims and their families, called for a conversion of hearts, and reminded us that God would bring good out of evil.
But were Denver Archbishop Samuel Aquila and Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley aware when they issued their statements that the killer was apparently a committed Muslim? Were they possibly accepting that, until proven otherwise, mass killers can safely be assumed to be white and probably Christian? Were they also adopting the widespread narrative that we are all somehow responsible for violence in America because of “implicit bias” and “systemic racism”? How else to understand the call on the part of both bishops for a “conversion of heart”?