Carnegie priest recounts events at Trump rally
Minutes before former President Donald Trump was injured in an assassination attempt on Saturday at a campaign rally in Butler County, the Rev. Jason Charron, pastor at Holy Trinity Ukrainian Catholic Church in Carnegie, delivered an opening prayer, and then privately warned a small group of rally-goers about “people who want to shoot” the Republican presidential candidate.
He described the chaos that unfolded after the shooting.
“Pandemonium and bedlam,” said Charron, who had been invited by the Trump campaign last week to offer a benediction before the rally.
Charron, who delivered his benediction at about 3 p.m., said in an interview Thursday that he had an engagement later that day that prevented him from staying to hear Trump’s speech.
As he hurried to his car, Charron encountered a group of attendees and asked for them to pray for protection for Trump.
(Trump’s safety) wasn’t foremost in my mind until a few minutes before he was to take the stage,” recalled Charron. “I was exiting the stage area and I met with a group of people in the crowd, and as I was leaving to head toward my car, I told them my part was done there, I prayed for the president and God’s guidance, but their part was just beginning because there are people who want to shoot him and people who want to kill him,” recalled Charron. “I don’t know where it came from or why I said it, but it came out loudly. I was surprised at how loudly I said it. That was about less than 10 minutes before the shooting took place.”
Charron met briefly with Trump backstage before he delivered the benediction.
Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old former fire chief, was killed in the shooting, and two others were seriously injured. The shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, was shot and killed by Secret Service counter-snipers.
Charron, who also serves as pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Wheeling, W.Va., said he did not know gunfire had erupted, but heard what he described as a “firecracker or a gunshot,” and saw a large number of people headed toward him.
“At that point, you’re in freefall with reality, trying to make sense out of the chaos. I received a phone call from one of my parishioners who was attending who said Trump had been shot by a bullet,” said Charron. “And then, you are hearing that there are multiple shooters and that there are people in the crowd with guns, and you don’t know what is really happening.”
In his benediction, Charron asked for the restoration of right relationships – on an individual, family and societal level – and to “renew our relationship with You, to make right our relationship with You, and to remove whatever is harming our relationship with one another.”
Charron said he believes the content of his benediction offers a “road map to the healing of the nation after the event.”
He encouraged people to turn toward daily prayer, attend church, and forgive one another.