The Morality of Violence - Kearnan Consulting Group, LLC

Catholic and Parochial Perspectives on Protection, Grievance, and the Pathway to Targeted Attack

Introduction

Every Catholic parish, every parochial school, every diocesan institution eventually confronts a question that no amount of theological study fully prepares its leaders to answer: when is the use of force morally permissible to protect the people of God? The question is not hypothetical. It is not abstract. It emerges from the lived reality of a world in which Catholic institutions have become targets of ideologically motivated violence, revenge attacks rooted in personal grievance, and acts of destruction driven by cultural rage against the Church itself.

The answer is more clearly articulated in Catholic moral tradition than many church leaders realize. But articulation is not the same as preparedness. What the Church teaches about the legitimate use of force, what research reveals about how a person moves from grievance to violence, and what recent events demonstrate about the threat facing Catholic communities together form a case for action that no responsible leader can afford to ignore. This article examines these three dimensions and argues that the moral, the empirical, and the operational are not separate conversations. They are one.

The Catholic Moral Case for Protective Force

The Catechism of the Catholic Church addresses the morality of violence with a clarity that surprises many who assume the Church teaches absolute pacifism. Paragraph 2263 states that the legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against murder. Rather, it is a distinct moral category. The act of self-defense, the Catechism explains, can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life and the incapacitation of the aggressor. The one is intended, the other is not.

This is the principle of double effect, rooted in the work of Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas argued in the Summa Theologica that a person who uses proportionate force to defend his own life is not guilty of murder, even if the aggressor dies as a result. The key moral criterion is proportionality: the force used must be no greater than what is necessary to stop the threat.

What many Catholic leaders overlook is paragraph 2265, which extends this principle beyond self-defense to the defense of others. The Catechism states that legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another’s life. The language is unmistakable. For a pastor, a principal, a parish administrator, or a school safety director, the protection of those entrusted to their care is not optional. It is a moral obligation.

Pope John Paul II reinforced this teaching in Evangelium Vitae, writing that legitimate defense can be a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, in its 1994 statement Confronting a Culture of Violence, acknowledged the reality of violence in American society and called on Catholic institutions to respond with both compassion and practical action.

The moral framework, then, is not silence in the face of violence. It is a call to proportionate, intentional, carefully prepared action to protect the vulnerable. And it requires that this preparation be undertaken with the same seriousness that the Church brings to its liturgical and sacramental life.

Understanding the Pathway to Violence

If the Catholic moral tradition establishes the authorization to act, the behavioral sciences provide the framework for knowing when and how to act. The pathway from grievance to targeted violence is not random. It is predictable. And that predictability is what makes prevention possible.

In his landmark work Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them, psychologist James Garbarino draws on twenty five years of clinical research, including interviews with juveniles on death row, to trace the developmental pathway that transforms a troubled child into a lethal assailant. Garbarino’s thesis is not that violence emerges from nowhere. It is that violence is the end product of a recognizable, often preventable, accumulation of risk factors: chronic exposure to abuse or neglect in early childhood, social rejection and isolation during adolescence, immersion in environments that normalize aggression, access to weapons, and the absence of what Garbarino calls a spiritual anchor, a source of meaning and belonging that provides an alternative to the narrative of rage.

The U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center has reinforced this understanding through its operational research on targeted violence. The NTAC model establishes that targeted violence is planned, not spontaneous. It moves through identifiable stages: ideation, planning, preparation, and implementation. At each stage, there are behavioral indicators that, if recognized, can interrupt the pathway before it reaches its conclusion.

What makes Garbarino’s work particularly relevant to Catholic institutions is his emphasis on the spiritual dimension. He found that boys who retain some form of spiritual connection, some sense that their life has meaning beyond their suffering, are significantly more resilient against the pull toward violence. The loss of that spiritual anchor is not merely a contributing factor. It is often the tipping point.

For Catholic institutions, this insight cuts in two directions. First, it affirms the parish and school as potentially the most powerful intervention point in a young person’s life, a place where the spiritual anchor can be forged or restored. Second, it means that when the church or the school fails a young person, the wound is not merely emotional. It is existential. And existential wounds are the ones most likely to metastasize into the desire for revenge.

Catholic Institutions Under Siege: The Evidence

The threat to Catholic institutions is not theoretical. It is documented, ongoing, and escalating.

Since May 2020, CatholicVote.org has tracked over 555 verified incidents of vandalism, arson, and targeted destruction at Catholic churches across 43 states and the District of Columbia. These attacks have been driven by multiple, sometimes overlapping, motivations: anger over the clergy sexual abuse crisis, ideological opposition to the Church’s position on abortion following the Dobbs decision, cultural hostility toward institutional religion, and displacement of grievances related to historical injustices.

The emergence of organized groups such as Jane’s Revenge, which claimed responsibility for arson attacks on Catholic churches and crisis pregnancy centers following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision, represents a shift from individual grievance to coordinated, ideologically motivated campaigns against Catholic institutions. In Canada, the discovery of soil disturbances at former residential school sites, many of which were operated by Catholic religious orders, triggered a wave of 33 arson attacks that destroyed churches between May 2021 and December 2023. The people worshiping in those churches bore no personal responsibility for what had occurred decades earlier. But they bore the consequence.

The Family Research Council documented 915 hostile acts against churches across 48 states from 2018 through 2023, with Catholic institutions among the most frequently targeted denominations. The Faith Based Security Network has tracked 2,361 deadly force incidents at faith based organizations since 1999. The Violence Prevention Project at Hamline University has documented 399 homicide incidents at U.S. houses of worship from 2000 through 2025, resulting in 512 fatalities and 213 injuries.

Recent events have made the threat impossible to dismiss. In August 2025, a gunman opened fire during a school wide Mass at Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis, killing two children and injuring 28 others. The attack was classified as domestic terrorism and an anti Catholic hate crime. One month later, a former Marine drove a vehicle into a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan, opened fire, and set the building ablaze, killing four congregants and wounding eight. The FBI confirmed the attack was motivated by anti religious hatred. In March 2026, a vehicle ramming and firearms attack at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan was classified by the FBI as a targeted act of antisemitic violence and terrorism.

The pattern is unmistakable. American houses of worship, and Catholic institutions in particular, face a persistent and evolving threat environment. The attacks are growing more frequent, the methods are diversifying, and the intersection of ideological grievance with personal rage is intensifying the targeting of religious communities across faiths.

The Anatomy of a Revenge Attack

Revenge attacks against religious institutions do not emerge from random impulse. They follow a pattern that threat assessment professionals have studied extensively. The Burnette Chapel Church of Christ shooting in Antioch, Tennessee on September 24, 2017 provides a direct case study. Emanuel Kidega Samson entered the church and opened fire, killing one worshiper and wounding six others. A note found in his vehicle stated explicitly that the attack was motivated by revenge for the Emanuel AME Church massacre in Charleston, South Carolina two years earlier. Samson, who had once attended Burnette Chapel as a child, targeted a predominantly white congregation in retaliation for Dylann Roof’s targeting of a Black congregation. The grievance was ideological. The target was symbolic. The pathway was traceable.

This is the anatomy of a revenge attack against a house of worship. The assailant does not choose a target at random. The target is chosen because it represents something: an institution that harmed the attacker, a community that rejected the attacker, a symbol of a power structure that the attacker believes has wronged him, or a proxy for an entirely different grievance that the attacker displaces onto the nearest available symbol.

For Catholic institutions, the categories of revenge motivated violence are distinct: survivors of clergy sexual abuse who direct anger at the institutional Church; organized groups targeting Catholic churches over doctrinal positions, particularly on abortion; attacks motivated by historical wrongs such as the residential school crisis; individuals who were expelled, disciplined, or denied sacraments and who perceive the church as having wronged them personally; and attackers who use the Catholic Church as a symbol of authority and target it as a proxy for broader societal grievances.

The Parochial School Dimension

Parochial schools occupy a uniquely vulnerable position in this threat landscape. They combine the characteristics of both a house of worship and an educational institution, which means they inherit the threat profiles of both. A parochial school must contend with the same targeted violence risks that any school faces, including the possibility of a current or former student who follows the developmental pathway described by Garbarino, while also inheriting the institutional grievances that make Catholic churches targets.

The parochial school also has a distinct pastoral relationship with its students and families that complicates the security equation. Expulsion decisions, disciplinary actions, the denial of sacramental preparation, or the removal of a family from the school community can create the kind of deep, personal grievance that Garbarino identifies as the triggering event on the pathway to violence. When a family’s relationship with their faith community and their child’s educational community are severed simultaneously, the wound is compounded.

This does not mean that schools should avoid difficult decisions. It means that every such decision must be handled with pastoral care, clear communication, and awareness that the manner in which a separation occurs can either defuse or accelerate the grievance process. A family that feels heard, even when the outcome is unfavorable, is far less likely to develop the kind of festering resentment that can, in rare but catastrophic cases, lead to targeted violence.

Interrupting the Pathway: What Catholic Institutions Can Do

If the pathway to violence is predictable, it is also interruptible. Catholic institutions, because of their unique combination of spiritual authority, pastoral relationship, and community presence, are exceptionally well positioned to interrupt the pathway at multiple points.

Pastoral prevention. The first and most powerful intervention occurs long before any threat materializes. Garbarino’s research demonstrates that the spiritual anchor, the sense that one’s life has meaning and that one belongs to a community that values them, is the single most protective factor against the descent into violence. Every act of genuine pastoral care is an act of violence prevention.

Behavioral recognition. Catholic school administrators, parish staff, and safety teams must be trained in behavioral threat assessment, the systematic process of identifying individuals who are moving along the pathway from grievance to violence. This does not mean profiling. It means paying attention to observable behaviors: withdrawal, escalating language, fixation on perceived injustices, fascination with prior attacks, and preparatory behaviors such as surveillance of the facility.

Compassionate separation. When individuals must be removed from the community, whether through school expulsion, parish discipline, or denial of sacramental preparation, the manner of separation matters profoundly. A family that feels heard and treated with dignity, even when the outcome is unfavorable, is far less likely to develop the kind of existential grievance that can escalate toward violence.

Threat response protocol. When a potential threat is identified, the institution must have a clear, practiced protocol for assessment and action. This includes consultation with law enforcement, engagement of mental health professionals, and, where appropriate, direct pastoral outreach to the individual. The goal is not punishment. The goal is interruption.

Community vigilance. Parishioners, parents, and staff must understand that reporting concerning behavior is an act of care, not an act of betrayal. A culture of shared responsibility for safety is the most effective early warning system any congregation can build.

The Moral Obligation of Preparedness

The Catholic moral tradition does not permit passivity in the face of foreseeable danger. The Catechism’s teaching that legitimate defense is a grave duty for those responsible for others’ lives is not a suggestion. It is a moral imperative. A pastor who knows that Catholic churches are being targeted and who takes no steps to protect his congregation is not exercising pacifism. He is neglecting his duty of care.

This does not mean that every parish must become a fortress. It means that every parish must take the threat seriously, assess its vulnerabilities, develop a safety plan, train its people, and create the institutional culture in which security is understood as an expression of love, not a capitulation to fear.

The morality of violence, properly understood, is not a question about whether it is ever permissible to use force. The Catholic tradition answers that question clearly: proportionate force in defense of the innocent is not only permissible but obligatory for those in positions of responsibility. The deeper moral question is whether we have done everything within our power to prevent violence from reaching our doors in the first place, and whether, if it does, we are prepared to respond in a manner that is proportionate, disciplined, and consistent with the dignity of every person involved, including the attacker.

That is the moral standard. It is demanding. It requires training, planning, resources, and courage. But it is the standard that the Catholic tradition sets for those who have been entrusted with the care of God’s people.

About Kearnan Consulting Group, LLC

Kearnan Consulting Group, LLC provides security consulting, risk management, and organizational resilience services to faith-based organizations, nonprofits, and private sector clients. Our team brings decades of experience in law enforcement, corporate security, emergency management, and threat assessment to help organizations identify vulnerabilities, develop comprehensive security programs, and build a culture of preparedness.

For more information, visit www.kearnanconsulting.com or contact us with any questions.

Sources

This article draws on themes explored in “The Morality of Violence: Catholic and Parochial Perspectives on Protection, Grievance, and the Pathway to Targeted Attack,” a chapter authored by Kearnan Consulting Group, LLC.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2263: “The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2264, citing Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II, q. 64, art. 7: “If a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repels force with moderation, his defense will be lawful.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2265: “Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another’s life.”
Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), §55 (March 25, 1995): “Legitimate defence can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others.”
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Confronting a Culture of Violence: A Catholic Framework for Action” (Washington, DC: USCCB, 1994).
James Garbarino, Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them (New York: Free Press, 1999). Garbarino’s research draws on 25 years of clinical work with violent juveniles, including death row interviews, establishing the developmental pathway from childhood trauma to lethal violence.
U.S. Secret Service, National Threat Assessment Center, “Enhancing School Safety Using a Threat Assessment Model: An Operational Guide for Preventing Targeted School Violence” (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, July 2018).
Garbarino, Lost Boys, supra note 7. Garbarino identifies the convergence of untreated trauma, social rejection, access to weapons, and a triggering grievance as the terminal pathway to lethal violence. See chapters 4 through 6.
CatholicVote.org, “Tracker: Attacks on U.S. Catholic Churches Since May 2020.” As of 2025, the tracker documented over 555 verified incidents of vandalism, arson, and targeted destruction at Catholic churches across the United States in 43 states plus the District of Columbia.
The “Jane’s Revenge” group claimed responsibility for multiple arson and vandalism attacks on Catholic churches and crisis pregnancy centers following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision (June 24, 2022). Four members were indicted under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act in March 2023.
CBC News investigation documented 33 fires that destroyed or significantly damaged churches in Canada from May 2021 through December 2023, with 24 confirmed as arson, following announcements regarding soil disturbances at former residential school sites operated by Catholic institutions.
Family Research Council, Hostility Against Churches report. Documented 915 acts of hostility against U.S. churches across 48 states from January 2018 through November 2023, including 709 vandalism incidents, 135 arson attacks or attempts, 22 gun related incidents, and 32 bomb threats.
Faith Based Security Network (FBSN), Deadly Force Incident Study. Data encompasses 2,361 recorded deadly force incidents associated with faith based organizations collected over more than two decades beginning in 1999.
The Violence Prevention Project, House of Worship Homicides Database, Hamline University, Saint Paul, Minnesota. Founded by Dr. Jillian Peterson and Dr. James Densley (2017). Database covers 2000 through 2025: 399 homicide incidents at U.S. houses of worship resulting in 512 fatalities and 213 injuries.
FBI investigation into Annunciation Catholic Church and School shooting, Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 27, 2025. Two children killed, 28 or more injured during school Mass. Investigated as domestic terrorism and anti Catholic hate crime.
FBI investigation into Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints attack, Grand Blanc Township, Michigan, September 28, 2025. Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40, a former Marine, opened fire on congregants and set the building ablaze using gasoline. Four killed, eight wounded. FBI confirmed the attack was motivated by anti religious beliefs and hatred toward the Mormon faith.
FBI investigation into Temple Israel synagogue attack, West Bloomfield Township, Michigan, March 12, 2026. Classified as a targeted act of antisemitic violence and act of terrorism.
Emanuel Kidega Samson opened fire at Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Antioch, Tennessee, on September 24, 2017, killing one worshiper and wounding six others. A note found in his vehicle stated the attack was motivated by revenge for the Emanuel AME Church massacre in Charleston, South Carolina (June 17, 2015).
U.S. Secret Service, National Threat Assessment Center, supra note 8. The NTAC model establishes that targeted violence is planned, not spontaneous, and moves through identifiable stages: ideation, planning, preparation, and implementation.
Garbarino, Lost Boys, supra note 7.
U.S. Secret Service, NTAC, supra note 8.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2265, supra note 4.
Kearnan Consulting Group, LLC analysis based on FBSN Deadly Force Study data, Violence Prevention Project database, FBI Hate Crime Statistics (2019 through 2024), and CISA threat briefings.