What, if anything, should we think of the life of the 24-year-old bomber in Austin, Texas, who killed himself as police closed in?

[RandomAlias]

Actually I’m interested in the Catholic perspective in my OP.

A Catholic perspective, probably not uniquely Catholic but certainly essential to Catholicism, is that every human person is precious to God. We are loved not according to our merits. God loves the bomber just as he loves the saints and as he loves you and me. This is difficult to comprehend.

 

[blackforest]

Mental illness was my first thought, too. No sane person takes the lives of others like this, let alone their own.

 

[brian_custer]

ask one of them; most murders are in “prison for life” and have nothing but time, tax-payer paid meals, clean linen, gym exercise equipment, cable tv and library privileges on their daily schedule

 

[JamalChristophr]

Well, each and every soul is worth more than all of creation put together. On the whole, it would certainly seem as though he did a great amount of evil and caused a lot of harm to people.

What was the meaning of his life? That’s above my pay grade, I think. It’s possible that he could have repented at the end, we can’t know that this side of heaven.

I do know from Faith that God permits evil to draw a greater good from it. This is a truth we have to accept as a foundation stone of our Faith as Catholics, very hard, though it may be, at times.

 

[SuperLuigi]

Apparently, some of them even vote.