From the Editor
When I was 11 years old two teenagers murdered 13 people in Columbine, Colorado. Neighboring schools installed metal detectors and mandated clear backpacks. Our school locked its doors and only let students enter and exit from one monitored doorway. Active shooter drills became commonplace. When I was 20, studying abroad in a country my parents had tried to discourage me against living in because of the risk of terrorist violence, there was a mass shooting in my hometown. In the building across the street from my old violin teacher’s house, in a parking lot where I used to park every week during my lessons, 13 were killed and 4 wounded—the deadliest mass shooting by a single person in the state of New York. When I was 25, reports of an armed assailant shut down the campus of my graduate school. My now-husband was dropping me off at work, and he and I sheltered in place under the desk of the drama school theatre where I sold tickets, flinching a little each time the doorknob jiggled or the phone rang. When I was 34, a shooter killed seven people at an Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Illinois, a wealthy Chicago suburb. I lived on the north side of Chicago at the time and had briefly considered going to the parade with my then 7-month-old before scrapping that plan in favor of visiting a much-closer butterfly garden. Despite all these close calls, I am one of the lucky Americans: I don’t know anyone personally who has been affected by gun violence. And yet, I can’t go into a concert, movie theater, grocery store, or even church without thinking, “What would I do if there was a shooting? Could I hide? Is there anywhere to run?” I’m not the only one who feels the constant weight of possible gun violence. When I was preparing for this issue, one of our editorial board members told me about his fear his kids would be involved in a school shooting. “It’s like a constant background anxiety that gets heavier as the day goes on,” he said. “They come home, and it gets a little lighter for a while, and then they go back to school the next day and the cycle continues.” Meanwhile, a 2018 study found that 75 percent of young adults between the ages of 15 to 21 report mass shootings as a significant source of stress, and 21 percent are either often or 1 constantly worried about a shooting at their school.
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American Psychological Assocation, Stress in America: Generation Z (APA, 2018), https://www.apa.org/news/press/ releases/stress/2018/stress-gen-z.pdf.
Cover: © Terence Faircloth, Stop Gun Violence, photo detail of a mural by Kyle Holbrook and local youth, Miami, Florida
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W I N T E R 2 0 2 4 • N O. 1 4 0
CONTENT WARNING This issue focuses on gun violence and its aftermath, specifically on the trauma young people around our country are experiencing due to gun violence and the threat of gun violence. Please be advised that some articles include discussions and depictions that may be distressing.
“This issue of A Matter of Spirit [allows] young people to speak in their own words about the impact gun violence . . . has had on their lives.” This issue of A Matter of Spirit addresses that anxiety headon, allowing young people to speak in their own words about the impact gun violence and the threat of gun violence has had on their lives. The two high-school students interviewed in ‘Are You With Us?’, Emma Lemieux and Abby Gomes, created a short film about the experience of being in a school shooting and its aftermath: the film won this past year’s social justice video contest hosted by the Sisters of Mercy Justice Team. The third young adult, Eliayni Torres, is a sophomore at St. Catharine Academy in the Bronx, New York. In ‘I've Never Heard of a Church Stopping Gun Violence,’ she talks about losing a friend to gang-related gun violence and speaks to how that experience has affected her. In addition, woven throughout the voices of young people are articles on how the church is looking to end the epidemic of gun violence in our nation. In “A Call to Do Better,” Angela HowardMcParland connects the work to end gun violence to Catholic social teaching. Two other writers reflect on specific programs and initiatives. Rev. James E. Curry, founding member of Swords to Plowshares NE, reflects on the experience of literally turning guns into farming implements. And Father Michael Murphy writes about his parish’s gun buyback program. The goal of this issue is two-fold. First, we hope it makes real the anxieties and fears facing each and every young person— every person, for that matter—in this nation about the threat of gun violence. May these voices make clear that the threat of violence can be almost as harmful as violence itself. And second, working to end gun violence is a mandate of our faith and our pro-life commitment as Catholics. May the articles in this issue give each of us the courage to act and create a safer world for all. —Emily Sanna, Editor