Senate Chaplain Barry C. Black has rarely espoused personal views during the nearly 20 years he has delivered the opening prayer, but on Tuesday his message was this: “When babies die at a church school, it is time for us to move beyond thoughts and prayers.”
Black told those hearing the prayer to remind lawmakers of the saying, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing,” a day after a shooter armed with two assault weapons and a pistol opened fire on a Christian school in Nashville, killing three elementary schoolchildren and three school employees.
The message was one of only a handful of times that Black, 74, the first African American and first Seventh-Day Adventist to hold the post, has spoken pointedly about issues from the Senate floor.
