Statement from Fr. Cooper on the Death of Bella Fontenelle

From the Office of the Pastor of Divine Mercy Parish
Reverend Father Robert T. Cooper
On the Death of Bella Fontenelle

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplications!
- Psalm 130:1-2

Tonight, the voices of many in Jefferson Parish and across the New Orleans Metropolitan area cry out at the indignity afforded 6-year-old Bella Fontenelle, a kindergartner at St. Matthew the Apostle Catholic School who was found dead inside a bucket on her mother’s front yard. Bella was beaten and strangled to death. 

From the depths of our being, we cry out at the horrific images of indignity and the seeming disregard for human decency. Our voices raise in collective grief with a family mourning a life ended in tragedy. 

We have been here before with senseless violence and heinous acts of cruelty against human life, and I fear we will be here again.

Let us resolve to live more fully into our call to respect the dignity of every person. Let us resolve to do justice tempered with mercy. Let us resolve to raise not only our voices but our very selves, to create a world in which no child of God suffers at the hand of another.
Pray for our city. Pray for the Fontenelle family. Pray for the St. Matthew the Apostle Church and School family. Pray for our common humanity.

May our cries for justice be accompanied by acts of compassion and mercy knowing that God holds the future as God holds the past.

May we together pray: Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake. Amen.