The good was found in the midst of the evil on October 25th, says the priest

The Rev. Daniel Greenleaf sits Thursday next to portraits of the people killed in the mass shooting on Oct. 25, 2023. Holy Family Church should be open for prayer all day. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

LEWISTON – How do you face evil and come out the other side surrounded by goodness?

That's the question the Rev. Daniel Greenleaf has wrestled with since the night of the mass shooting in Lewiston last year. The answer is not simple, and it is nuanced.

“In this dark time, the challenge is to find the light, the hope, the meaning in it all,” he said, “to believe that this is not the end of the story.”

According to Greenleaf, life in Lewiston will never be the same after October 25, 2023.

“There definitely seems to be a before and an after,” he said.

The pastor of Prince of Peace Parish said he has focused on the light that shows up in times of darkness to carry himself and his parish through.

“It was amazing to see how much good came out of it,” he said. “The people who came out, the kindness, the money and the prayers; People ask, ‘How can I help?’ ‘What can I do?’ For me, it makes me love Lewiston even more because I’ve seen so much good in people.”

Greenleaf said that sometimes the good in people shines brightest when darkness and evil show their faces.

“Sometimes you only see the good when the bad comes,” he said. “Otherwise you can take it for granted and even forget it’s there.”

Over the past year, Greenleaf has been thinking a lot about how to talk to people about making sense of such a tragedy and how to help them overcome their fears surrounding such a traumatic experience.

“When they come to me, they're not necessarily struggling with their faith, so much as they're trying to figure it out,” he said. “How am I supposed to understand that? How could God allow this to happen? That's part of the problems I'm dealing with. The feeling of, how does someone heal, do they move on?”

People, he said, need to see the situation “in light.”

“As difficult and painful as it is for all of us, it has changed our lives forever, but we cannot allow it to end in this very pain,” he said. “There has to be more – something that leads us to hope and good.”

Reckoning with fear

Greenleaf said fear among his parishioners and the larger community has been one of the biggest challenges.

“What we’ve had to continually overcome is fear,” he said. “Will this happen again? What would happen if “this” happened?”

The church went through a time when masses and events ensured that everyone was inside and the doors were locked so that no one could enter freely.

“We realized that wasn’t the right way to deal with it,” he said. “We can’t live like this. But it’s still in the back of my mind, especially since we get together in a big group.”

It became a focus and he often had to talk to community members about it, reassuring people that everything would be okay.

“And that's just a product of what I consider post-traumatic stress,” he said. “After experiencing those three days (when the shooter was at large) when everyone was on lockdown; I don’t know where he is or what’s going on.”

This fear has played out in real time over the past year, even on himself.

He said there was an event at Holy Family Church on Sabattus Street on Saturday where he saw a man he didn't know enter the church. The man sat in the back row for a while. Then he got up and left, went to his car, opened the trunk, took something out and went back to the church.

As he watched from a window in the rectory, he panicked. The man had been acting strangely.

“I saw it out the window and ran. I thought, 'What is he bringing to church?'”

They locked the doors and called the police, he said. The police came and the man left. It turned out it was nothing.

Greenleaf said he had no idea what happened or could have happened, “but you know where the brain goes.” The man, he said, appeared to be mentally ill.

“It’s hard to digest,” he said. “How could we not want someone in church? Why can't he come to church even if he is mentally ill? This could be a place where he could find a lot of peace and happiness. But there is another element that is brought in based on our experience (during filming).”

“It brings me back”

At the Basilica of St. Peter and Paul downtown on cold days, some homeless people come in during and after mass and sit in the back.

Last year, a lady walked up the aisle and started confronting Greenleaf in the middle of Mass. Another man sat in the front row, then raised his hand during Mass and immediately wanted to talk to him.

“If you want to come in and warm yourself, Christ wants us to do that,” he said. “But if you come and cause disruption, we can’t allow that.”

“It’s that balance that you have to deal with,” he added. “We want to be welcoming and it doesn't cost us anything to let someone come in and warm themselves and even fall asleep in the back pew, that's fine.” Be warm. But everything we experience is filtered on this October evening.”

When emergency vehicles fly past the rectory with sirens wailing, it reminds him of the night of the shooting.

“It brings me back,” he said. “It’s a human reaction after experiencing what we experienced.”

Recent violence in the city has heightened some of these ongoing fears, particularly in the area surrounding the basilica.

“We even moved morning Mass to the Holy Family because people were afraid to go downtown,” Greenleaf said.

“You've made a connection between violence and the inner city, and part of the problems in the inner city are mental illness and drug use,” he said. “People feel uncomfortable.”

Authorities knew that the Oct. 25 shooter, Robert Card, struggled with mental illness. This fact has created even more uncertainty for those in the city who are also struggling, and access to help can often be limited.

“Good people tried to help (Card), but there's a broken system that didn't allow him to get help,” Greenleaf said.

As a person of faith, Greenleaf said such things need to be put into context.

“What Card did was evil, but his own illness made him so vulnerable to giving in to evil,” he said. “People who carry out these shootings are suffering for many reasons, and that's not a justification, but it adds another piece to the puzzle. There will never be answers, but we must explore them because you see how deep these problems really are. You are dealing with infinite questions and complex meanings.”

While the basilica no longer hosts evening masses, the church hosts events such as parties, family reunions, games, get-togethers and more.

“The basilica is a great place for some events, but we feel that people are more afraid now,” he said. “They caught a man on video opening car doors and stealing things from unlocked vehicles (during an event).”

Greenleaf says he looks forward to the city coming together and finding solutions to crime and drug use in the area.

“Sooner or later we’re going to have to deal with what’s going on down there,” he said. “The city doesn’t seem to be able to get it under control.”

PILGRIMAGE TO FIND THE LIGHT

Even on the other side of the world, Greenleaf said he saw a deeper meaning in the Lewiston shooting.

On a recent trip to Poland, from which he returned just this week, the people he met there knew about what happened here last year.

“Even in Poland people knew about Lewiston, so they identified with that event,” he said.

During his stay, Greenleaf visited the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II and spent time in Warsaw.

“We went to a museum about a priest who had supported some of those in hiding and was eventually killed in the war. We learned of another man who had taken the place of others in the camps and eventually died,” he recalled. “Even in the midst of this horror, you see such good things happening. Against such overwhelming evil; There are such deeply religious people everywhere you go.”

When asked how he finds the light in the darkness, Greenleaf said there are two quotes that have helped him.

“It's never so dark that you can't see the light. It will never be so bright that you can't see some darkness.” The other: “Evil persists because good people do nothing.”

“I believe in goodness. You have to be on the side of good and light,” he said. “I think this is reflected in my own experience dealing with someone who has cancer. I’ve seen so much good.”

There are no quick answers to the larger questions of faith and good and evil.

“How can there be so much good in the world when there is so much evil? They speak of questions that affect the entire human existence.”

“I don’t know why evil exists, but I know what evil there is,” he said. “It breaks some people, but it brings out the best in others.”

“The experience for me – it helped me love the people of Lewiston, especially those in my community, even more.”

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