The priest said Trump’s crusader contacted him a few days ago and asked him to offer a blessing at the rally.
A Catholic priest who gave a blessing at former President Donald Trump’s rally on Saturday told others that they were praying for Trump moments before he was shot and wounded.
Father Jason Charron, a Ukrainian Catholic pastor, told CNA that an organization of 15 to 20 other people called him to a barricade at the protest site as he tried to leave a while before Trump began speaking.
“I told them: I prayed for him and his safety, but they will have to pray too, because there are other people who need to kill him,” Father Charrón said in a telephone interview with CNA Saturday night. “And I didn’t think about it: literally a few minutes later, there was this kind of confusing noise, and other people started coming out, and at that moment I heard someone say it was a gunshot. “
A gunman seeking to kill Trump shot the former president multiple times, hitting the most sensitive part of his right ear, killing a bystander and wounding two others, the government said.
Father Charron said he met briefly with Trump before the former president came out to face the crowd at the rally, which took place at a Butler Farm Show site in Butler County, Pennsylvania.
“I talked to him about Ukraine and shook his hand. It wasn’t a very deep conversation,” Father Charron said.
The priest told CNA that Trump’s crusade contacted him a few days ago and asked him to offer a blessing at the rally. In an interview broadcast Saturday night on the podcast “Pintes avec Aquin,” Father Charron recounted the prayer he offered during the event.
“My prayer was a prayer of protection. My prayer there was for the recovery of intelligent relationships in our society: relationships at the individual level, at the family circle level, at the social level, so that our country would recover its wonder in the eyes of God. And our country would be wonderful again, I said, that our country would be wonderful again, in the eyes of God,” said Father Charrón.
“All this presupposes that other people begin above all to live their lives according to the will of God,” the priest added.
Father Charron said he is aware of Trump’s political statements that clash with Catholic teaching, adding to Trump’s recent statements saying he supports the availability of abortion pills. But he alluded to Trump’s pro-life actions, including, while he was president, the appointment of three United States Supreme Court justices who helped form a majority that overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, which allowed states to ban abortion.
“If other people wonder why I am at a Trump rally, it is not to canonize him or absolve him of his many imperfections,” Father Charron told CNA.
“Your recent timidity in defending pro-life legislation is undesirable, and that is not why I am here, but to inspire you to build on the pro-life victories of your first administration,” he said.
Father Charron was ordained a priest of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the Diocese of St. Josaphat in 2008. He has served parishes in North Carolina, West Virginia and Pennsylvania and is most recently pastor of Holy Trinity Ukrainian Catholic Church in Carnegie, Pennsylvania. Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Wheeling, West Virginia.
House Oversight Chairman James Comer announced that Congress would hold a hearing on the assassination attempt, to which Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle would be invited.
“This is a very, very sad day for our country,” said Michael Warsaw, chairman of EWTN’s board of directors. “We will have to pray for the former president and for all those who have been affected by this incident. We will also have to redouble our prayers for our country.
A relatively large minority of voters, 39 percent, believe society is better off if other people make marriage and having children a priority, while 59 percent say society is better off if other people have other priorities.
The 2024 presidential race reflects a divided country, and the electorate is expressing discontent with the two leading candidates.
The observation also states that the Holy See “joins the prayer of the American bishops for America, for those who suffer and for peace in the country, so that the motivations of the violent never prevail. “
House Oversight Chairman James Comer announced that Congress would hold a hearing on the assassination attempt, to which Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle would be invited.
“This painting highlights the Eucharistic detail of Our Lady of the Champion by combining the three apparitions to Adèle Brise into a single image,” explains artist Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs.
Sharing moments before the Eucharist.
The occasion will be to rediscover the messages of Venerable Fulton Sheen for our times and to promote his beatification.
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