Written by John Blake, CNN
(CNN) – Festive crowds gathered to cheer his assassination.
One newspaper headline eulogy read, “Rot in Hell.” Televised chants echoed: “U.S.A.! U.S.A!”
Americans spilled into the streets for spontaneous celebrations after news spread that Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks, had been assassinated.
Yet another reaction took place in more sober moments as people of faith watched the giddy celebrations with a tangled mix of emotions.
Is it morally wrong to celebrate the assassination of bin Laden in such a festive, patriotic way?
That’s the question that troubled Danielle Tumminio, an Episcopal priest, who fought back tears as she digested the news that bin Laden had been killed.
Tumminio was in New York on September 11, 2001. Her Long Island neighborhood, filled with lawyers, stockbrokers and firefighters, lost scores of people in the attacks.
“I remember coming home and smelling the smoke, seeing the debris and going to the funerals,” Tumminio says. “I actually studied abroad because I wanted to get away from feeling unsafe.”
But when Tumminio saw images of Americans celebrating, she felt something else: moral ambivalence.
“My first reaction was, ‘I wish I was with them,’” Tumminio says. “My second reaction was, ‘This is disgusting. We shouldn’t be celebrating the death of anybody.’ It felt gross.”
Jubilance, exaltation, revulsion – all those emotions mingled as people of faith struggled to find an appropriate response to bin Laden’s death.
No one we interviewed for this story denied the importance of bin Laden’s death; the heroism of the American soldiers; the importance of serving justice.
But religious leaders of different faiths say no one should rejoice in the death of a person, even a hated enemy.
Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld says that when people hear about the downfall of an enemy, rabbis often remind them of a verse from Proverbs: “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles.”
Herzfeld – who is the rabbi of Ohev Sholom, The National Synagogue, the oldest and largest Orthodox synagogue in Washington, D.C. – says that according to the Talmud, “God does not rejoice with the fall of the wicked.”
“As the rabbinic teaching goes, as the children of Israel were crossing the sea and the army of Pharaoh was drowning, God rebuked the angels for showing excessive joy,” Herzfeld says.
Emad El-Din Shahin, a professor of religion at the University of Notre Dame, says the Quran also teaches reverence for every life, even the most repugnant ones.
He says Islam stresses that the death of a person should be observed in a respectful and solemn way for all people, not just Muslims.
He told a story from Islam to illustrate his point.
The Prophet Mohammad was sitting by a road one day when a funeral procession came by. The prophet stood up out of respect, says Shahin.
“The people with him told him, ‘But he’s not a Muslim.’
“The Prophet Mohammad said, ‘Isn’t it a human soul?’”
Shahin says most Muslims reject the notion that bin Laden was a Muslim leader.
“Bin Laden did not represent Islam or Muslims,” Shahin says. “He was an aberration. Most of the teachings and practices of al Qaeda were condemned by the majority of Muslim scholars and populations.”
One Christian leader pointed to a biblical story from the life of Jesus. Scott Appleby, a history professor who studies the roots of religious violence at Notre Dame, said that when Jesus was surrounded by guards near the end of his life, one of his disciples picked up a sword.
Jesus rebuked the disciple, saying, “Those who live by the sword die by the sword.”
“Certainly Osama bin Laden, who lived by the sword, received the world’s form of justice,” says Appleby. “But do we really think that violence, even a ‘justified’ act of violence, has the capacity to heal the wounds inflicted by violence – or to end the cycle of violence?”
Some leaders say that dancing on bin Laden’s grave is wrong from an ethical point of view as well.
“Killing someone should never be a cause for celebration or joy,” says Rick Halperin, past chairman of the board of directors of Amnesty International USA.
“We as a nation are repulsed when we see Muslims dancing over the death of Americans. Why would we think our reaction would not be seen as disgusting behavior to them?”
The best reaction would be “somber reflection,” says Halperin, who is also director of Southern Methodist University’s Embrey Human Rights Program.
Tumminio, the Episcopal priest, has already arrived at that place. She says she plans to preach a sermon about the appropriate reaction to bin Laden’s death. She’s still sorting through what she will say.
“I think people have a right to celebrate. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with holding up American flags. But I don’t think we should celebrate the taking of life.”
There’s at least one sentiment she feels no ambivalence about.
Bin Laden’s death should give the United States something else its citizens have craved since September 11, 2001.
“I think this is going to be unifying for us,” she says. “Very few things have been unifying for us in the past 10 years.”