NYPD Officer Steve McDonald, who forgave the man who shot and paralyzed him, was remembered at St. Patrick’s Cathedral during the March for Life week.
Officer Steven McDonald did it best — with tremendous obstacles.
I t was breathtaking to be at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on the morning of January 18. The Christmas tree was gone from Rockefeller Center, but the church was packed yet again, this time with a strong showing from the NYPD, the new mayor, and other civil leaders. It was the fifth anniversary of the death of Steven McDonald, who was a remarkable witness to forgiveness and radical love. As a young newlywed shot on the job by a troubled teen, he forgave the shooter and even offered him room in his home once he was released from prison. The young man died, but I suspect that McDonald offered his sufferings for his eternal soul.
McDonald was paralyzed by the bullets — he had to learn how to speak again. His son, Conor, who spoke powerfully at the end of Mass, never knew him any other way. Cardinal Timothy Dolan opened his homily talking about groaning, borrowing from one of the readings. We groan about ongoing Covid and violence and the vicious divides in our country. And yet the memory of McDonald and how he chose to live his life after it was so dramatically altered is a ministry to us in our sadness, anger, confusion. He “quieted our groans, loosened our paralysis, by his radiant example,” Dolan said.
The Mass was breathtaking because the full cathedral was silent and reverent during the holy sacrifice of the Mass, so miraculous to those who believe. There can only be graces from this. And toward the end of Mass, people spoke about the most important things. I know we all don’t believe the same things about God or even about man, and yet there was a reverent coming together. I’m not sure I knew that was possible anymore. And yet it is. There was a true united spirit of humility and awe and gratitude in the air.
There can be nothing of a coincidence that McDonald died in January. We marked the anniversary on the same week as the March for Life in Washington, D.C. Annually — last year, with a small representation because of Covid and post–January 6 security measures on Capitol Hill — we march to the Supreme Court to mark Roe v. Wade, the decision, handed down in 1973, that made abortion legal in all three trimesters of pregnancy. (That the decision makes abortion legal in all three trimesters may be one of the least known facts in the U.S., according to polling.) It gives me hope is that most people don’t want abortion that liberally. They want to know that women in tough, sometimes seemingly impossible situations do have options. And, mercifully, there are tremendous ministries that walk with women. We should all want to walk with the women in our lives — single motherhood, however it happens, is not the way things are supposed to be. We need to celebrate the courage with great compassion and love and accompaniment.
Steven McDonald was a living icon of the value of every human life. His groans showed us what a mercy the seemingly unbearable struggles of life can be. His perseverance demonstrates what humans are capable of with humble trust that life is always a gift. Remembering his life, and introducing his story to new generations and non–New Yorkers, should make us more convicted to defend, protect, and love every single person we encounter, whatever they believe, whatever they look like, and whatever even they say to us.
A group of legal-abortion advocates projected messages on the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception while 5,000 of us were inside praying the night of the March for Life. Another group planned a “F*** the March for Life” demonstration back at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. These are desecrations, but not greater desecrations than what our law has enshrined with nearly a half century of Roe. The night before the march, a new grandmother sent me photos of her grandson, delivered at least two weeks before his due date.
At the Mass for McDonald, Cardinal Dolan said: “After he was shot multiple times and struggled, groaned to breathe, to swallow, to move, to live, he faced the awesome question: Am I going to spend my days groaning bitter, angry, useless, paralyzed? Or will I fight on? And forgive and forge ahead in a life of love and purpose and freedom?”
There’s a similar question we face as a nation. Disagreeing on a whole host of issues — some of them quite fundamental, such as whether we will defend the helpless unborn or kill them, and whether we treat the paralyzed or otherwise impaired or elderly as if they were useless to us and better off dead — can we choose to be decent to one another and hear one another out and live together?
Conor McDonald, who himself is now a police officer, spoke powerfully about what his father taught him about the reality of evil and our need to stay close to God, who is stronger than Satan. I’m quite certain that everyone in the cathedral was not on the same page. And yet, who could deny that evil has a stronghold in our country today?
I don’t think most of us want to dismiss the humanity of the most vulnerable. Could we start there? To want to help make life possible, at all stages? We have to stop yelling at one another. It’s the only way to see our common humanity.
To read more on Steven McDonald, click here and here.
This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.