Minneapolis: A wave of grief and outrage has swept across the Catholic Church in the United States following Wednesday’s mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, where a young gunman opened fire during morning Mass. The tragedy claimed the lives of two children, left seventeen others injured, and ended when the assailant took his own life.
The attack unfolded just before the beginning of the school day, shattering what should have been a sacred and safe moment of prayer for students and teachers. Across the nation, bishops, cardinals, and Church leaders have expressed solidarity with the grieving community, calling not only for prayer but also for urgent action against the plague of gun violence.
Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, conveyed the Vatican’s closeness through a message to Archbishop Bernard Hebda of Minneapolis. He extended “heartfelt condolences” to the families of the victims and assured “fervent prayers” for healing.
Cardinal de Mendonça emphasized that the tragedy highlights the urgent need for Catholic education to deepen its commitment to forming young people in the values of peace and fraternity. He wrote that the Church must continue “building a culture of fraternity, founded on a peace that is both unarmed and disarming.”
In Chicago, Cardinal Blase Cupich released a moving statement, describing the attack as a wound felt across the entire Catholic community. He lamented the growing normalization of gun violence in America, stressing that the shooting at a school and parish spaces that should be sanctuaries of safety was especially devastating.
“If any place should have been safe, it should have been there. If any time should have been safe, it should have been then,” Cardinal Cupich wrote. He urged prayers for those with political authority, that they might find the courage to enact reforms protecting children and families. He warned that treating such shootings as “inevitable” would mean surrendering America’s most fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
From Newark, Cardinal Joseph Tobin described the attack as the destruction of what should have been a joyful start to the new academic year. In a message of solidarity, he assured the Annunciation Catholic School community of his prayers, declaring that “no child should ever face fear in a place of learning and worship.”
Cardinal Tobin appealed to the faithful to pray for the grieving families and the parish community, asking that Christ the Redeemer bring peace to all those mourning the loss of young lives.
In New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan took to social media to express shock and sorrow, calling the attack “all the more disturbing because it happened at a Catholic church and school, which should always be sanctuaries of peace.”
“We mourn the two innocent children whose lives were cut short by this dreadful tragedy,” he wrote, adding prayers for the seventeen wounded. He said the Church stands “in compassionate solidarity” with the community of Minneapolis and denounced the “mind-numbing gun violence” that has become tragically routine across America.
As Minneapolis mourns, the tragedy has reignited a national conversation about gun violence, especially its devastating toll on children and schools. For the Catholic Church in the United States, the massacre has become both a moment of mourning and a rallying cry an urgent appeal to prayer, compassion, and concrete action for change.
For the community of Annunciation Catholic School, however, the pain remains raw. A Mass meant to mark the beginning of a school year has instead become an unthinkable marker of loss, forever etching this tragedy into the memory of a grieving city and Church.