A man entrusted with offering a prayer at former President Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, recalled his experiences on the fateful days before and after Trump’s attempted assassination.
A few days before the event, a member of Trump’s team reached out. Father Jason Sharon I asked Sharon, a Ukrainian Catholic pastor who serves churches in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, and Wheeling, West Virginia, if he would be willing to lead the congregations in prayer.
“We are being asked to have a bloody faith,” Sharon argued. “Christ is asking us to get dirty, to have nails driven into our hands at times, to put a crown of thorns on the temple.”
So on Saturday night, Sharon stood at the podium at the rally and prayed for God to send the Holy Spirit to make America and the world “great again in God’s eyes.”
“Through Christ our Lord, Amen,” he said, his prayer ending in thunderous applause from the crowd. Trump Presumed Approximately 55,000 people.
Sharon had to leave the rally shortly afterwards, but before leaving the main venue, he instructed a small group of several dozen people to pray for God’s blessing on President Trump. “I say that because people are going to try to kill him,” Sharon said. “They’re going to try to shoot him.”
His words were astonishingly prescient.
Just minutes after the blessing, as Pastor Sharon arrived in his car, he heard gunfire and saw chaos unfold. “That’s how the devil works,” the good father explained. “He likes chaos.”
Sharon then left the rally and was soon featured on the popular Catholic YouTube channel “Drinking beer with AquinasIn fact, shortly after the interview began, Sharon learned from the host about the death of beloved father, husband and former fire chief Corey Comperatore, as well as the injuries of two others.
Asked about the role of priests during such terrible tragedies, Sharon was adamant that suffering is a necessary part of the Christian experience, pointing out that Christ’s suffering on the cross is the example all Christians must follow.
“We are being asked to have a bloody faith,” Sharon argued. “Christ is asking us to get dirty, to have nails driven into our hands at times, to put a crown of thorns on the temple.”
Sharon continued that regardless of circumstances, all Catholics, and especially Catholic priests, must remain steadfast in their faith “without apology.”
“It is important for us Catholics, and especially for me as a priest, to be present to publicly and unapologetically advocate for the gospel of Christ,” he said.
When criticism arose over Sharon attending one of Trump’s rallies despite Trump’s vocal rhetoric about abortion (the Catholic Church calls abortion a “moral evil”), Sharon argued that too many people fall victim to the “fallacy of perfection,” which convinces them not to vote for any candidate who isn’t “absolutely perfect.”
Sharon is clearly opposed to abortion and “anti-life culture in general,” but he praised Trump (who Sharon believes is a baptized Christian) and his work in appointing pro-life judges who were overruled by the president. Roe v. Wade.
Although I am grateful in the end eggSharon disagrees with some of President Trump’s views on abortion – in fact, she believes abortion is the cause of nearly all of the violence plaguing America today.
“For generations, we have raised our children with the understanding that it is OK to kill and dispose of precious human life in that most sacred place: their mother’s womb,” Sharon explained with conviction, “and if that sacred gift is disposed of in that sacred place, then we will all be wiped out.”
But Sharon argued that abortion is not the only pro-life issue: As a Ukrainian, he also sees the war in Ukraine as a key pro-life issue, and he has praised Trump for sending “defensive weapons” to Ukraine during his presidency, contrary to policy established under the Barack Obama administration.
During a brief meeting with Trump just before the rally, Sharon had the opportunity to thank the former president for his work on behalf of the Ukrainian people. “I said, ‘Thank you,’ and he was very grateful and said, ‘It pains me to see young people dying in Ukraine. It’s a projection of weakness,'” Sharon recalled of the conversation.
Sharon called for a pardon from President Trump, described the shooter as a “madman” and urged Americans to show him mercy.
“When faced with evil like this, there are only two responses…. One is to become evil, and the other is to allow it to happen,” Sharon argued, “and the sooner we get through this valley and come out the other side, the better for us and for the lost souls in this world.”
Speaking on “Pints with Aquinas,” Sharon said that Jesus Christ’s forgiving of his executioner and Pope John Paul II’s forgiving of his would-be attacker are models of a correct understanding of Christian forgiveness, and suggested that President Trump should forgive the shooter and share that forgiveness with the American people.
“If President Trump is trying to win over his enemies, I think his best chance of winning over the undecided and his opponents would be the day he is able to pardon the assassination attempters.”
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