Before the start of the Mass, officers in a line of police vehicles, including dozens of police motorcycles, had processed along Colfax Avenue to the cathedral to pay their respects.
Archbishop Aquila offered the “condolences of the entire Catholic community, for your husband, for your dad, and for your son.”
Talley gave his life to save others, Aquila said, and he quoted the words of Jesus: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.”
Aquila said based on the testimonies of Talley’s fellow officers, “Eric lived that.”
“It is evident he was a man of God, one who put Christ first in his life,” Aquila said, offering prayers for the police officers in attendance.
Talley joined the Boulder police department in 2010 at age 40.
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“May our Lord continue to comfort you...in the days ahead,” Aquila concluded, speaking to Talley’s family, which includes seven children ranging in age from seven to 20.
Father James Jackson, FSSP, pastor at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, said in his homily that the tragedy of the shooting in Boulder “broke God’s heart,” and told the congregation that Jesus bore the pain of the shooting at his crucifixion.
The priest read from a sermon on the Agony in the Garden by St. John Henry Newman, which reads in part: “[Suffering] is the long history of a world, and God alone can bear the load of it.”