The silence has been deafening.

My dear fellow Catholics, your silence screams; our ears are ringing.

Tragedy has struck. Yes, much needs to be grieved; and yes, I know everyone grieves in their own way. Yet there are two kinds of silence, one unlike the other.

There’s the silence of grief – the ear-ringing shell-shock as you beg your tumultuous surroundings just a moment more to get your bearings. This silence is at least human (all too human) and understandable. It’s Christ falling to his knees at the news of his cousin’s death: “He wept” (John 11:35).

There’s another kind of silence, a more pernicious one. It’s the silence of barely-masked guilt disguised as barely-masking contempt and indifference. It’s the silence of bystanders: priests and scribes going on their way and ignoring the Samaritan in the dirt. It’s the kind of omission of which Christ said: “I tell…