Osama is dead, and I don't feel so good myself.

After a decade of wondering, watching and waiting, Osama bin Laden has finally been found, and was killed near the capital of Pakistan. I feel conflicting emotions in regard to this event.

First of all, I am glad that this notorious racist, xenophobe and murderer has been rendered incapable of ever harming another person. I do not think that the application of the death penalty is wrong in this regard, and the Catechism bears this out. Was it possible to have captured him and brought him to trial? Yes. But I don't feel that death was morally unwarranted in this case. Bin Laden publicly proclaimed his responsibility in the deaths of thousands of people; his guilt was unquestioned. His death, surely, prevented the death of others. In this I see no moral ambiguity.

The thing that bothers me is watching my fellow countrymen take to the streets, cheering and celebrating the death of another human being. It's a scene we've seen in some Middle Eastern countries before and found to be repugnant to our sensibilities, and yet here we repeat it with gusto, simply because the dead person in question is a "bad guy."

Others will discuss this issue with more depth, with greater theological stringency and with an eye to the Christian's view of the world. I won't reach so far; I merely lament the descent of our culture into a desensitized, Playstation world where a human death is cause of jubilation. I sincerely hope that I never lose that aspect of my humanity that feels sadness that any person has to die.