ST STEPHEN’S Church in Redditch is to be open tonight (Wednesday, May 24) from 5pm to 6.30pm for those wishing to pay their respects to the victims of the Manchester bomb attack on Monday evening.
Twenty-two people were killed and 64 injured when suicide bomber Salman Abedi detonated a bomb in the foyer of the Manchester Arena at a concert by the American singer Ariana Grande.
Redditch town centre chaplain and vicar of St Stephen’s, The Reverend Paul Lawlor, said he hoped that by opening the church it would give people a sense of peace, space and a time for reflection.
“It will be an opportunity for people, if they want to, to come together and yet find some space,” he said.
“I’m not planning to make it a service but every now and then we may say a few words.”
Reflecting on the atrocity in Manchester he said: “God must weep at the things people do.
“How can anyone get to a point where they say this is something that they wanted to do, where someone wants to claim responsibility for an act such as this.
“And when it involves children it cuts to the heart, you simply cannot comprehend it.
“My fear is that such things could make religion toxic when it is not, it is the most beautiful thing and these people are trying to take it away from us.”
