‘No defense against malice’
Caption: Paul VanSant, 24, a junior, and Erin Byrum, 23, a graduate student, sign a book in front of a makeshift campus memorial April 16 at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. A gunman, later identified as a Virginia Tech student, shot dozens of people and killed 32 before killing himself at the university earlier that day. Writing about the tragedy, Jesuit Fr. William J. Byron, a former president of The Catholic University of America in Washington, said there “is no defense against malice in our world. But preparation is always possible. … The power of faith and religion to ready the human spirit to withstand any assault, physical or psychological, cannot be overestimated. … Liturgically–especially sacramentally–the believer must be helped to heal in the broken places.” Campus ministry centers and nearby parish, Byron wrote, “provide the space and facilitate the reflection that students need if they are to permit sacramental grace and the interpretative framework provided by the Christian Gospel to work the wonders they are capable of working.”