Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home News

‘Appalling’ – President Trump supporters storm Capitol Building and halt electoral college vote count

byJoe Higgins
7 January 2021
Reading Time: 4 mins read
AA
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
March: Supporters of President Donald Trump gather in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021. Photos: CNS

CHURCH leaders across the United States and the world have decried the violence and insurrection unfolding at the Capitol Building in Washington DC today as US House and Senate members failed to confirm the electoral college vote for President-Elect Joe Biden.

The vote count was interrupted by rioters, who pushed past two police lines, a line of metal barricades and pried open the Capitol Building doors to occupy historic spaces.

Los Angeles auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron said he was “appalled” by the images from Washington DC. 

“To see these violent, riotous mobs inside of the US Capitol, someone with his shirt off and a crazy hat on standing at the presidential rostrum in the senate – they appalled me. 

“Not just as an American but as a Christian.”

In the chaos of the rioting, one woman had been shot and killed.

Preliminary reports suggest she was wearing a Trump banner when she was shot and was taken away in an ambulance.

Authorities have not yet released her name.

The scenes unfolded at the Capitol as US President Donald Trump held a rally in Georgia, where he repeated unsubstantiated claims that the election had been “stolen” from him and he had won the election.

Mr Trump lost the election in both popular vote and electoral college vote.

Related Stories

India records 329,000 cases in two days as WHO warns pandemic is at ‘critical point’

Second Catholic president causes some to celebrate, gives others anxiety

Bishop Barron said keep ‘eyes fixed on Jesus’ amid calamity in US politics

At least six House Democrats had called for a renewed impeachment of Mr Trump, claiming he had incited violence at the Capitol.

Others who have decried Mr Trump’s response have suggested invoking the 25th Amendment of the US Constitution, by which the sitting president can be deposed by the National Cabinet and the vice president.

Civil unrest: A clash between Trump supporters and District of Columbia police.

President-Elect Biden said on Twitter that “the scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not represent who we are”. 

“What we are seeing is a small number of extremists dedicated to lawlessness,” he said.

“This is not dissent, it’s disorder. It borders on sedition, and it must end.”

The electoral college vote was an important step in ratifying the presidential election towards Mr Biden’s inauguration day on Wednesday, January 20. 

Bishop Barron said he had recently finished a book about Abraham Lincoln’s first inauguration when the US Civil War was brewing and said even they managed to finish the electoral college count – “something which just amazingly we were not able to do today”.

“And the problem is what we’re seeing it seems to me is a breakdown of one of the great qualities of our liberal democracy, by which I mean the opening up of a nonviolent space, a space of conversation, of debate, of argument, of voting, all these nonviolent means by which we adjudicate our disputes and move forward as a country,” he said.

“To see violent people invading that civilly, sacred space, was what was so disturbing and so unnerving.”

He said the US was going through “difficult times” and the events at the Capitol were a “culminating event”.

“There was a lot of violence this past year, plenty to go around across the ideological spectrum – people attacking our institutions, people refusing to engage in anything like real argument or discussion or civil discourse but resorting to violence,” he said.

Flood of flags: Thousands of Trump supporters rallied to the country’s Capitol Building to protest the counting the electoral college votes.

“This has got to stop and I say that as an American but again also as a Catholic bishop because many of the best qualities of our democracy are grounded in deeply religious principles – equality, freedom and the dignity of the individual and this nonviolent space for the adjudication of our disputes.”

Bishop Barron called on everyone in the country to engage in a national examination of conscience.

“Are we able to inhabit this healthy space of our democracy or are we resorting to something far more dangerous and far more primitive?” he said.

“Can we all engage in this national examination of conscience and take a good hard look at this very, very negative turn that I think our country has taken.”

House and Senate representatives have said they would return to the Capitol once the rioting had ceased to complete the electoral college vote.

Previous Post

Christmas blessings from Bishop Howell – Christ is the answer everyone needs

Next Post

Brisbane Catholics look back on the highs and lows of the 2011 floods

Joe Higgins

Related Posts

Crowded: Police officers try to control the crowd, most without masks, during Lathmar Holi celebrations in Barsana, India, March 23, 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Photos: CNS
World

India records 329,000 cases in two days as WHO warns pandemic is at ‘critical point’

13 April 2021 - Updated on 14 April 2021
News

Second Catholic president causes some to celebrate, gives others anxiety

21 January 2021
News

Bishop Barron said keep ‘eyes fixed on Jesus’ amid calamity in US politics

19 October 2020
Next Post

Brisbane Catholics look back on the highs and lows of the 2011 floods

Brisbane Oratory ordains first man in pre-Christmas milestone

Canossian Sisters transfer aged care works to Ozcare

Popular News

  • Sarah Bradbury

    Sarah Bradbury takes one small step towards NASA after winning QUT Astrophysics Project internship

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Relationship advisers Megan and Nahum Kozak share six tips to a happy, lasting relationship

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • The cathedral that was never built – the project that troubled long-serving bishop

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • What is lust?

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Grand plan for one of Brisbane’s heritage church sites

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Flying buttresses are pictured on the exterior of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris Dec. 23, 2019. Two years after a fire destroyed much of the church's wooden structure, a fundraising group is urging people to sponsor a statue or gargoyle to help with reconstruction.
World

‘Sponsor a gargoyle’ to help rebuild Notre-Dame Cathedral

by CNS
16 April 2021
0

TWO years on from the fire that destroyed much of Notre-Dame Cathedral’s wooden structure, a fundraising group...

Love: “Research shows there are some key, learnable strategies that distinguish what happy and unhappy couples do with their time and energy.”

Relationship advisers Megan and Nahum Kozak share six tips to a happy, lasting relationship

15 April 2021
Pope says Church reform must originate in prayer, otherwise it is not of the Holy Spirit but of ‘groups’

Pope says Church reform must originate in prayer, otherwise it is not of the Holy Spirit but of ‘groups’

15 April 2021
An eight-storey commercial building neighbouring the state-heritage-listed St Patrick’s Church at 58 Morgan St, Fortitude Valley.

Grand plan for one of Brisbane’s heritage church sites

14 April 2021

Mask mandate to be lifted early due to lack of community transmission

14 April 2021
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyReturn to Shop
    Continue Shopping