A church in Massachusetts is going a long way to ensure Jesus-loving gun-fuckers completely lose their shit this holiday season. Tucked neatly into St. Susanna Church's nativity scene, amongst the sheep and baby and angels and whatnot, are the locations of several examples of America's leading news export: mass shootings.
"It just kind of hit us all, about 12 of us here in the group in the parish, that when it comes to the mass shootings, it seems to be like Groundhog Day in that just kind of repeats itself, repeats itself," Father Steve Josoma toldBoston.com Tuesday. "You have a shooting and there's a period of time afterwards where we have to pray for the victims and support the victims, but we can't talk about any change—that will come later. And then the later never seems to happen until the next one. This has happened since Columbine, really. There hasn't been much change implemented to break that cycle."
Among the 16 examples named in St. Susanna's Dedham-based nativity are the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, the 2015 San Bernardino attack, and Las Vegas music festival shooting perpetrated by a white domestic terrorist.
Ultimately, Josoma hopes the church's nativity remix will inspire conversation about pushing back against the new American "normal" of incessant mass shootings. Part of the conversation, he said, should center on issues of mental health and the remembrance of victims.
Josoma is also no fan of the idiotic "good guy with a gun" theory that Wrangler-clad 2nd Amendment obsessives love to toss around in the wake of a tragedy. "It doesn't work that way," he said.
Amen, says this staunch atheist.
