A missed opportunity for learning

By happy coincidence, I was seated beside Bishop David Monroe at Coun. John DeCicco’s table during Saturday night’s Colombo Lodge dinner in celebration of the 18th anniversary of the lodge’s current building.

The bishop told me about the letter he received from John Bandura, the mentally ill man who savagely attacked him at Sacred Heart Cathedral last October, putting him in hospital for several weeks. Bishop Monroe seems more concerned about Bandura and his family than about himself.

Coun. Marg Spina, stopping by our table to pay her respects, joked, “You’d better work on him; he’s an agnostic,” referring to me.

Bishop Monroe is a fine, caring, courageous, intelligent man who would be disparaged by some atheists simply because he is a man of God.

Those who dismiss another human being based on disagreement with that person’s beliefs miss an opportunity to learn.