CNA Newsroom, Jul 14, 2024 / 06:40 am

A Catholic priest who gave a benediction during former president Donald Trump’s rally Saturday told people they needed to pray for Trump moments before Trump was shot and wounded.

Father Jason Charron, a Ukrainian Catholic pastor, told CNA a group of about 15 to 20 people called him over to a barricade within the rally site as he was trying to leave shortly before Trump began speaking.

“I said to them: I prayed for him and his safety, but that they have to pray, as well, because there are people who want to kill him,” Charron said in a telephone interview with CNA late Saturday night. “And little did I think — literally a few minutes later there was this kind of indistinct sound, and people began leaving, and at that point I heard someone saying that that was a gunshot.”

A gunman trying to kill Trump fired several times at the former president, hitting the top of his right ear while killing a spectator and wounding two more, authorities said.

Charron said he met briefly with Trump before the former president went out to address the crowd at the rally, which took place in an outdoor venue at Butler Farm Show in Butler County, Pennsylvania.

“I spoke with him regarding the situation in Ukraine and shook his hand. It wasn’t a very in-depth conversation,” Charron said.

The priest told CNA that the Trump campaign contacted him a few days ago and asked him to offer a benediction at the rally. In an interview that aired on the “Pints with Aquinas” podcast Saturday night, Charron recounted the prayer he offered at the event.

“My prayer was one of protection. My prayer there was for the restoration of right relationships in our society — relationships at the individual level, at the familial level, at the societal level, such that our nation would be made great again in God’s sight. And our nation be made great again, I said, that our world be made great again, in God’s sight,” Charron said.

“All of this presupposes that people, first of all, begin to live their daily lives in accordance with God’s will,” the priest added.

Charron said he is aware of Trump’s policy pronouncements that conflict with Catholic teaching, including Trump’s recent statements saying he favors the availability of abortion pills. But he alluded to Trump’s pro-life actions, which include while he was president appointing three U.S. Supreme Court justices who helped form a majority that overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, which enabled states to ban abortion.

“If people are going to wonder why I was at a Trump rally, it wasn’t to canonize him or absolve him from his many imperfections,” Charron told CNA.

“His recent shyness on championing pro-life legislation is undesirable, and it’s not for that that I’m there, but to encourage him to build on the pro-life victories of his first administration,” he said.

Charron was ordained to the priesthood in the Ukrainian Catholic Church for the Diocese of St. Josaphat in 2008. He has served in parishes in North Carolina, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania and is currently pastor of Holy Trinity Ukrainian Catholic Church in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, and Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Wheeling, West Virginia.