For decades, I’ve stood on street corners all over Erie, looking at bullet holes in the walls of homes and businesses, praying for an end to murder. With other Benedictine Sisters as well as Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Saint Joseph, and countless heartbroken family members, neighbors, and concerned residents, we’ve come together for hundreds of Take Back the Sites, mourning the violence that has ended someone’s life, and that has radically altered the life of the killer. We do this to remember the victim, to pray for the perpetrator, and to remind each other that it is not normal to treat life carelessly.
The last two weeks in Erie have shaken our whole community precisely because of the recklessness with which human life was treated. Ten lives were taken in a burst of brutal violence, by a family patriarch. It’s difficult to comprehend the enormity of the devastation, the number of lives lost, the grief and the huge holes that each one of them leaves, the lost potential to our community.
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The memorial for the Erie mass shooting victims remains outside of 722 Perry St. on Oct. 13, 2026, nearly five days after the tragic shooting event took place. (Nicholas Sorensen/Erie Times-News)
Those deaths happened in the middle of the trial of the parole officer who killed Marchello Woodard, an unarmed Black man, a father. That trial had us re-living that tragic loss of life in vivid detail. And the verdict — not guilty on all counts — has ripped open old wounds for Chello’s loved ones, increased fear and division in our community, and in our view, revealed how strong systemic racism is today.
These back-to-back events of violence and grief leave the city grappling with the deep, long-term issues of poverty, mental health, gun violence, and most of all, the awareness of how many people among us are living in fear. When all of this compounds, many of us feel like shutting down, denying, hiding, retreating, suppressing feelings and being busy about other things — any other things.
And yet, the teaching from our varied religious and spiritual traditions invite us to give space to grief, to listen to our emotions, to lean in and listen to others in their grief and their pain. Prayer and meditation take us deeper into our own hearts and soften us to the pain of the rest of God’s beloved children.
A memorial of stuffed animals and candles is shown at 722 Perry St. in Erie, Pa., Oct. 12, 2026, three days after a mass shooting there left nine people dead. A gunman shot eight people then shot himself.
At our Take Back the Site vigils, we remember that when anyone is lost to violence, all of us are diminished. We are all connected. Any sense of separation, of alienation, is an illusion. When my sister or brother is in pain, is hurting, is living in fear, we are all impacted. When some in our community feel more insecure and afraid right now, all of us are more insecure and afraid, even if we pretend not to be.
We are invited to pray for and with those in our community who are grieving, and recognize our connection. We are not separate from the women and children living in fear of abuse. We are not separate from the Black men and people of color living in fear of law enforcement officers. We are not separate from the mentally unstable people suffering and filled with anger. We are not separate from the law enforcement officers.
We can’t always prevent tragedy, but we can take these tragic situations in our community as opportunities to commit again to ensuring the dignity of every person, especially the children. We can recommit to addressing the issues of poverty, sexism, racism, gun violence and access to mental health care and protection from abuse.
Maybe that sounds impossibly idealistic to you, but I know it’s a way of life that’s within our reach because I’ve seen people do it. For one example, I remember my friend, Brother Kevin Stevenson, who died on October 2nd after a brief illness.
I met Brother Kevin years ago when he was the chef at the City Mission where he oriented Gannon student volunteers. He shared with them his own faith and his journey of recovery from addiction. I got to know Brother Kevin more deeply in recent years, when he served as a Blue Coat at Emmaus Soup Kitchen. He was the gentle presence at the door of the soup kitchen, or talking to guests in the line outside, or listening intently to whomever seemed to need a bit of extra attention that day. He was positive, funny, humble, and open. He met every other person with respect, treated them with dignity, reached out with genuine care to every other person. He was an equal-opportunity lifter of spirits, a light in the darkest days and the darkest times. No one was judged and condemned by Brother Kevin. No one was beyond his care. No one. He connected to them in their struggle, whether or not he had been in their exact situation before.
He is a model, a standard we can strive for: He gave himself for our community.
A memorial cross has been set up outside the site of 722 Perry St., where a mass shooting took place on Oct. 9. This cross honors Angelina Stone and her unborn baby Kyrie.
What would I be like if I could meet every person with that much warmth and respect and care? What would our community be like? Brother Kevin’s life is a witness that we can all strive to imitate. We can watch out for each other, notice when another might be in trouble or need extra attention, make space in our hearts and our lives for those who are different from us, who disagree with us on issues, even those who distrust us.
There are many people in our city who are frightened these days. Every single one of their lives is precious. As precious as Marchello’s, as Angelina’s, as Kevin’s, as mine, as yours. So as painful and exhausting as this time is, all we can do is remember what we owe each other: reverence and attention, and the understanding that peace and freedom for one of us means peace and freedom for all of us. We will have a Take Back the Site on Perry Street in a few weeks. And we’ll be reclaiming Erie from the violence and pain of this October for the rest of our lives.
Anne McCarthy, OSB, is coordinator of Benedictines for Peace.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Amid grief, violence, Erie must choose connection over fear | Opinion