The Whole Campus - Pulaski to St. Louis from 103rd to 99th is Closed Due to a Threat: Fear Trumps Faith?

What happens now?

Some nutbag made a threat - 'Be prepared to Die on 4/14.' St. Xavier University closed, followed in succession by Mother McAuley, Brother Rice, Queen of Martyrs and an Evergreen Park Public School.

We should all take threats seriously and respond in kind - be vigilant. Four men were shot at the Glass House Lounge on 79th & Halsted over the weekend. No threat, that happened. Leo High School is open today.

Two Leo graduates were murdered in November due to Chicago's Thug Comfort Zone. Thugs feel comfortable enough to murder without fear of consequence. Every year on the Friday just before Veterans Day, Leo High School Honors Veterans - men who lived every day of their young lives under fire. An Honor Guard of Marines fires volleys with M1 rifles and when they do so our young men often duck, because the sounds of gunfire are all too familiar in their neighborhoods. They smile and ceremony concludes with dignity.

To err on the side of caution is understandable. To completely change directions when threatened is capitulation. The bad guys, the goofs, the terrorists win. I went to two wakes over the weekend. We are all going to die. The longer we live, the sooner we die, as the old song goes. 'We believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth and things, seen and unseen . . .' That is what we say at Catholic Mass every Sunday . . . well, most Sundays.

We believe that God has a plan for us and just maybe that plan includes an early trip to Sheehy's Funeral Home for us. We say that we believe this.

The Chicago Police Officers and the Evergreen Park Police Officers are on this threat. I wonder if we really, believe what we say. I have faith in the Police. I'm sending my daughter to school. I'll go to work at Leo. There will be eight or ten young guys waiting at the door of Leo on Sangamon Street, when I pull into the lot at 6:30 AM, only a short walk from where four men were shot at the Glass House on Halsted.

Those eight or ten young men have Faith and they will get instruction today at Leo. Thousands of young people from my much safer neighborhood will not. The person who called this retreat in the face of this threat seems to have more Faith in the words of the goof who wrote the threat, than in the words of Creed that we say by rote.

What the Hell do I know.