Mr. Speaker, violence is always profoundly unjust, because it is inevitably the innocent who pay the price, an incalculable price. How do we measure the value and nobility of a single human life?
Today we pause, above all, to remember the thousands of innocent human beings who paid the terrible price of hate and violence with their own lives. Mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, sisters and brothers, young and old, all they sought was to go about their daily lives and return to their loved ones once their day was done.
In mourning them we say a special prayer for all the loved ones who will never see them again and whose lives will be changed forever. May they be given the strength and fortitude to find peace and acceptance in the difficult days and years ahead. God bless them all.