The devil in Belgium

A man forced his way into a Belgian nursery Friday and commenced to knifing infants. By the time he finished, 6- and 9-month-old babies lay dead, along with a nursery worker who tried to protect them. Another 10 children received multiple stab wounds.

The town held a vigil, and as is common in the aftermath of such monstrosities, but people report that they don't know why it happened. Many lesser journalists resort, in such moments, to the cliché "looking for answers." Citizens in Salinas, Calif., are looking for answers after a string of shootings. People in Covina, Calif., are searching for answers after a man dressed as Santa went on a murder spree. Academics in Mumbai are looking for answers in the wake of the murderous rampage that briefly held world attention.

We are surrounded by evil, and to read the typical journalistic account, a good many of us have no idea its origin. We are conditioned to inquire whether the attacker grew up in an abusive home, or perhaps was fondled by his parish priest, or snapped under the strain of repressing his homosexuality. We are trained, in other words, to search for the origin of evil where it can never be found, which is in material causes. People knife babies because their souls have been twisted by the devil himself. The rest is just commentary.

But there's no medication for evil, no policy change, no modification of machinery. The solution to the ravages of the devil is resistance in the presence of the Holy Spirit and within the protection of the one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. That's a mouthful, and it's indigestible for the modern materialist. Devil? The word's so outdated that the Oxford Junior Dictionary recently deleted it. Children will find in its place words like "blog." I suppose if the devil wants direct publicity in the future, he'll have to open a Facebook account.

So we have this tragedy, and grieving parents, and a community with enough sense of the sacred to close down the profaned nursery. They know the blood of innocents has hallowed it, and they know further, as one man told a journalist, "We are broken." There is the truth of things here after all, even as journalists will descend to search for answers.

We are broken. It is the truth of things, and embedded in it is the right question, which is: How might we be fixed? The answer is simple, and impossible for many, and grievous beyond that, because it doesn't promise an end to murders and heartache, only salvation in the midst of them. But that, I suppose, is everything. It is certainly, in horrible moments like this, the only thing that brings hope. Pray with me that the parents of these little ones have such hope.