NICKEL MINES, Pa. — Members of the Amish community are mourning the death of a Pennsylvania state trooper who comforted and befriended survivors of a 2006 schoolhouse shooting rampage.
Trooper Jonathan Smith died at home June 12 of pancreatic cancer. He was 47.
Smith was one of the first troopers to force his way into a barricaded one-room Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, where a milk truck driver fatally shot five girls and wounded five others before killing himself.
The trooper helped carry the wounded girls outside. He also went on to befriend the survivors and the victims’ families.
A member of the Amish community told the local newspaper that they took comfort in knowing Smith was looking after them. Fisher said the trooper “helped ease the pain.”
Pope pilgrims: Plan on walking
PHILADELPHIA — Pilgrims planning to see Pope Francis when he comes to Philadelphia should be prepared to walk a couple of miles.
Organizers said private vehicles won’t be a viable option during the papal visit this fall.
Officials Tuesday discussed preliminary transportation arrangements for the event, which is expected to draw up to 2 million people to the city.
Regional trains will stop only at a handful of stations in the suburbs to provide express service downtown.
Transit authorities urged passengers to buy $10 daily rail passes early. They’ll go on sale in limited quantities July 15.
A special three-day pass for public bus, trolley and subway service also will be sold for $10.
The pontiff is traveling to Philadelphia on Sept. 26-27 for the World Meeting of Families.
Jeb Bush to back religious rights
MIAMI — Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has launched his Republican presidential campaign with a pledge to defend the conscience rights of religious charities.
Bush cited the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of nuns fighting the Obama administration over the health care law’s birth control mandate. He said the nuns need a president who understands they “need no federal instruction in doing the right thing.”
Bush said Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has made it clear she thinks religious beliefs should be changed if they conflict with the liberal agenda.
He faulted President Barack Obama for bringing up the Crusades at this year’s National Prayer Breakfast. Bush said, “Americans don’t need lectures on the Middle Ages when we’re dealing abroad with modern horrors committed by fanatics.”
Elisabeth Elliot, author, dies at 88
GLOUCESTER, Mass. — Christian author and missionary Elisabeth Elliot has died at the age of 88, according to a statement on her website.
Her husband, Lars Gren, said Elliot died Monday morning. Gren said, “We rejoice for Elisabeth that she is home with her Lord.”
WORLD magazine reports that Elliot had dementia for about a decade, and died at the couple’s home in Gloucester.
Elliot’s first husband, Jim Elliot, was killed in 1956 while he and several other missionaries were trying to make contact with a remote tribe in Ecuador. She later became a missionary to the same tribe that killed her husband, converting many of them to Christianity, and remained with them for two years.
After returning to the United States, Elliot wrote more than 20 Christian books and became a popular speaker.