A United States archbishop said Catholics and others are revealing “signs of God’s great love” in the week following the deadly shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis. Source: CNA.
“I get the idea that people are very much turning to the Lord at this time and there’s just been a real outpouring of love,” Saint Paul and Minneapolis Archbishop Bernard Hebda said on EWTN News Nightly on Tuesday.
Archbishop Hebda said there had been “no shortage of volunteers” in the days since the shooting, which claimed the lives of eight-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski and injuring approximately 20 others.
“Counsellors are coming forward,” the archbishop said. “Those who are able to help their parents and families in all different ways are stepping forward to really show what happens when a church community is impacted.”
Archbishop Hebda said he was gratified after Pope Leo XIV spoke directly about the shooting and called for an end to the “pandemic of arms” that brings about such violence.
The Holy Father’s prayers were particularly poignant, the archbishop said, given that Leo himself is a native of the Midwest.
“[It was] huge … especially to be able to hear those words in English and in a Midwestern accent,” he said.
“The victims of the shooting were taken to two hospitals in Minneapolis,” Archbishop Hebda said. “And one of them is adjacent to the very hospital where Pope Leo had done his [clinical pastoral education] when he was a seminarian.”
“So, I know he knows the spot, he knows Minneapolis, and we’re really counting on him continuing those prayers,” the prelate said.
Annunciation Church will have to be reconsecrated after the shooting, an act that Archbishop Hebda described as “reclaim[ing] that territory for the Lord.”
“I know it’s going to take a long time for some of the faithful to be able to go back into that building that was the site of such devastation,” he said.
“But we’re hoping that as time continues to heal and as those prayers continue … that we will get to that point where that church will once again be a hub of activity.”
FULL STORY
Minneapolis archbishop: Community ‘turning to the Lord’ 1 week after church shooting (By Daniel Payne, CNA)
