“When God put man in a garden
He girt him with a sword,
And sent him forth a free knight
That might betray his lord;
“He brake Him and betrayed Him,
And fast and far he fell,
Till you and I may stretch our necks
And burn our beards in hell.
GK Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse
The Vegas Massacre reminds me of the basic fact of the human condition: free will. We are made in the image of God in that, like God, we have freedom of will. Unlike God, we sometimes choose evil. Looking at what I have just written, that is incorrect. Sometimes we revel in it. Absent mental illness, that is precisely what the Vegas shooter was doing as he gunned down hundreds, slaying 59 innocents and counting.
We live in a time of pernicious make-believe when all too many assume that Man is essentially good and that if only we have enough laws and social programs, utopia awaits. Our ancestors were usually wiser. They understood that evil is part and parcel of the human condition, which is why Man needs a Savior. Too many of us today have forgotten that all-important element in understanding Man. Thus crime is not to be punished, but rather criminals are to be rehabilitated. Men are not responsible for their actions and thus we focus on inanimate objects that are somehow held to be responsible for the evil that Men do. Mercy is emphasized rather than justice. Man is taken to be infinitely malleable and if only we could find the right social formula, ghastly events like the Vegas massacre would be just bad memories.
In our folly we trust in Man to cure his sickness of soul, a hope that is to be ever disappointed. Our only hope is in God, and a turning to Him to save us from the evil within us that ever threatens to engulf ourselves and others. One hundred and twenty years ago Rudyard Kipling, who described himself as a devout Christian atheist, understood Man so much better than we do today:
We have to remember, that evil is not God’s fault. Evil is our doing, and as Don wrote, “we have freedom of will. Unlike God, we sometimes choose evil.”
Satan’s greatest, recent “accomplishment” was convincing large swaths of mankind that he/evil doesn’t exist.
Reminds of Unabomber Ted Kasinski without the manifesto.
Almost nothing is known as to motive. One thing the killer’s brother informs: he had no religious affiliation.
My first thought when I heard about this shooting was the recent article about Saint Michael. As horrible as that scene looked to human eyes, if it could have been viewed through supernatural power it would have been immeasurably worse.
Another relevant C&H moment.
http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1992/04/06
They will find a way to blame it on Trump, e.g., Trump madness was the root of his evil.
One possibility that I haven’t seen mentioned: could it be that Paddock was possessed by the devil? There’s no way to find out now, but there doesn’t seem to be any other explanation.
Such a monstrous – evil act. So many innocents, may they rest in peace and God comfort those who mourn. That man, whose name we will not utter, seems to have no formal history of mental illness but perhaps a madness not recognized by the American Psychological Association, that of Satanic Madness. Would that His Holiness bring back the Prayer of St. Michael at the conclusion of each Mass.