HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?

APRIL 29, 2007

How could this happen? How could a 23 year old Korean majoring in English at Virginia Tech University named Cho Seung Hui have killed so many people without provocation and in cold blood? How could schoolmates and school officials not have sensed more keenly the danger Cho posed, and how could they not have reacted in time to avert disaster?

On Monday, April 16, an institution of higher learning, dedicated to enlightenment of the human mind, became a killing ground where the light was dimmed to black. As the story broke, and as details continued to emerge in the following days, the horror of it all sank more and more deeply into our national psyche, like a nightmare from which we could not awake. We passed from shock to numbness to disbelief.

When we learned the identities of the slain, and discovered they had come to Virginia Tech not just from around the nation, but from such distant places of origin as Indonesia, Peru, Romania, India, Puerto Rico, and Egypt, the randomness of the killings seemed all the more cruel. It was as though the whole human race had been indiscriminately attacked.

Our best efforts as a nation to build a body of laws that would protect individual liberty and privacy now worked bitterly against us. HIPAA, intended to preserve the privacy of individual health information, prevented school administration officials from being informed about Cho’s deep and dangerous psychological problems. The constitutionally protected right of citizens to own and bear arms insured that Cho could obtain his 9-millimeter instruments of death without the slightest difficulty.

Haunting memories came to mind of the 22 people killed at the Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas in 1991, of the 16 people killed (and 31 more wounded) at the University of Texas killings in 1966, and of the 12 killed (and 24 wounded) at Columbine High School in 1999. Yet, these past massacres were now completely overshadowed by the number of deaths resulting from Cho’s blind rampage.

The Christian answer to the question, “How could this happen?” is schooled by deep reflection on the human condition, which is weighed down by the mystery of sin. The sad story of Cain killing his brother Abel brought to Adam and Eve the first stunning realization of the terrible consequences of their disobedience of God, and put us on alert, for all time, that the damage resulting from estrangement from God through sin can be deadly. We were created in God’s image and likeness, and when we lose a living relationship with God, we lose our humanity and behave inhumanly. When we turn our backs on God, we face the darkness.

In his infinite goodness, however, God is able to bring good out of evil. When tragedy strikes, as it did at Virginia Tech, deep and often dormant parts of our humanity are awakened and they manifest themselves. We are drawn closer to each other by our shared grief, and as we contemplate the pictures of the slain, we know they are part of us and we are part of them. We may experience a yearning to speak with them to console them, and to somehow take on ourselves a share of the trauma and loss which they suffered. We find ourselves strangely missing them, even though we have never known them. We remember the fragility and uncertainty of life, and know the same thing could have happened to us, or could happen again tomorrow. We realize that we feel love in our hearts for all people, and we love life and want everyone to have it to the full.

Such incidents as the massacre at Virginia Tech also force upon us a decision – to be either people of hope or people of despair. We will either believe that our existence is accidental and meaningless, and death therefore marks our permanent annihilation; or we will put our trust in God, and remember that Jesus came to deliver us from evil and death. We will also remember, especially in this Easter season, that Jesus rose from the grave to restore our life with God forever, and that we will meet in God’s kingdom.

Jesus warned his followers that they would have trouble in this world, but told them to take courage, for he had overcome the world (cf. John 16:33). The massacre at Virginia Tech challenges us to have courage and to trust in God. Troubles and losses will come our way. We cannot escape them. If we build on trust in God and in his word, we will never be crushed. Jesus said: "Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock” (Matthew 7:24-25).

+Bishop Raymundo J. Peña

last updated 05-Jun-2008 9:48 sitemap