The Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes in Spokane, Washington, is, in my opinion, one of the safest places on the planet.

This is my home. I moved to this parish in 2018 and discovered an environment of security, love and hospitality from everyone in the church.

Earlier this week, on Feb. 4 at 5:45 p.m., my sense of security in my home was shattered.

It was the second day of the cathedral’s annual Our Lady of Lourdes novena for healing. About 400 people were in attendance. A man, slurring his speech, rushed into our sanctuary and threw a punch at our parochial vicar, Father David Gaines, as our bishop, Bishop Thomas Daly, kneeled nearby on the altar.

Cameras captured the harrowing incident, which was being livestreamed on Facebook — footage that has circulated widely on social media this week. Neither Father Gaines nor Bishop Daly were harmed, thankfully.

The attacker, identified in local media reports as Joshua J. Sommers, 40, was subdued by church security and members of the congregation and taken into custody on charges of assault and trespassing. He was charged with a misdemeanor fourth-degree assault for the attack on Father Gaines. He also faces additional criminal charges from prior alleged assaults.

Despite the disruption, the novena continued as planned, with clergy leading prayers for healing, including for the attacker.

When the attack took place, from where I was sitting in the back of the church, we could hear the rector of the cathedral, Father Darrin Connall, shout, “Can someone get the security guard!”

A security guard, someone I had never seen in action before, bolted past me, rushing to the sanctuary to help other men who leapt up from the front pews restrain the assailant, who struggled with Father Gaines on the altar.

Father Gaines tried to calm and console the man. You can hear the priest on video saying, “You’ll be okay; you’ll be okay.”

The cathedral has had security incidents before, including the 2023 case of an allegedly homeless man who hid inside a bathroom where he allegedly molested a boy, according to The Spokesman-Review newspaper.

And now this.

During this week’s assault, I took out my rosary and started praying for the man. We didn’t know what prompted him to act in this way. We did know that he needed prayer.

A Mental-Health Epidemic

When I heard the attacker scream, I recalled the many traumatic incidents that occurred while growing up with a family member who has suffered from mental-health issues. I recently lost my cousin to a Fentanyl drug overdose; he was trying to heal himself with the very substances that took his life. He died near the cathedral in the freezing cold; it’s possible that he may have even stepped inside for the 5 p.m. Mass before he died. Please pray for him and his family. He might have been saved if our mental-health system weren’t so broken.

One would expect the city and its leadership to seek meaningful change, yet they continue down the same ineffective path, hoping for different outcomes. To me, this pattern defies logic.

As Father Gaines told The Spokesman-Review, “We put them in jail and then put them out of jail, and we don’t give them any recovery options.”

We need change. We need real Christian compassion.

We live in a world that often confuses enablement with compassion. In many cities, like mine, city leaders leave us living in fear. Those who desperately need mental-health treatment are thrown back onto the streets, trapped in cycles of abuse and self-destruction. We grieve not only for the harm done but for the lives that could have been saved if only we as a society had the courage to care in a way that truly heals.

This failure isn’t just theoretical; it’s happening before our eyes. Even our long-standing Catholic institutions are being affected by this. Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center, a hospital founded by the Sisters of Providence in Spokane, recently curtailed the mental-health services it provides, having shut down its in-patient psychiatric clinic for children in September, citing staff shortages.

As Catholics, we know that we cannot look the other way while people deteriorate before us. True compassion demands that we fight for the dignity of every human being, even when the battle is difficult, even when the answers are complicated.

We pray for the victims of violence. We pray for those suffering in silence. We pray for those struggling with mental illness — that they might find the help they need before it is too late. And we pray that our city wakes up before we lose even more lives to a crisis that can no longer be ignored.

A Challenge for Our Society

The night after the attack, Father Gaines gave a powerful homily sharing how love for another involves grief. One cannot simply love without hurting. He compared this love to the Virgin Mary, who is the Lady of great sorrow and great love, who consoles her children so intimately that, despite the brokenness, she shows them a path to love, which is Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.

“As we continue this novena of healing, today we are invited in a special way to go through Jesus through Mary. All the devotions that we do through this novena, nothing is stopping at the Blessed Virgin, but going to Jesus through her,” he said.

He reminded the congregation that the purpose of the novena was not just to reflect on suffering, but to allow it to become a path to healing.

“We are here at the novena of healing to bring deep intimate healing that comes from the real, true Presence of Christ in the Eucharist,” he said.

He emphasized that pain, grief and sorrow are not obstacles to healing, but essential to it.

“Offering restoration from the wounds of sin; offering restoration from the wounds of grief and sorrow,” he said. “And when we need healing, part of that healing journey means that we need to grieve. We have to hurt; we need to feel the pain, the sorrow, loss. As modern psychologists say, to grieve well means to love well; to love well means to grieve well.”

His words, spoken in the wake of an attack, carried a weight that resonated beyond the cathedral walls. They were not merely a reflection on the pain of one moment but a reminder that suffering is part of love, and love, when rooted in Christ and brought through the lens of the Virgin Mary, is the very source of healing.

In that light, even the previous night’s suffering could be transformed into an invitation to deeper faith, deeper healing and, ultimately, deeper love.

So we pray. We pray for the victims of violence. We pray for those lost in the darkness of behavioral-health issues. We pray for the souls, like my cousin’s, who were abandoned by a failing system. And, yes, we pray for the man who attacked our priest, because his story is not over.

And we do not stop at prayer. We act. We demand change. We stand up for real, Christ-centered compassion, for a mental-health system that truly serves those in need.