By Gina Christian
(OSV News) – The 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina marks a call to “renew our commitment to racial equity and justice in every sector of public life,” said two U.S. Catholic bishops.

Auxiliary Bishop Roy E. Campbell Jr. of Washington, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee on African American Affairs, and retired Auxiliary Bishop Joseph N. Perry of Chicago, chairman of the USCCB’s Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism, issued a joint statement Aug. 26 reflecting on the tragedy.

The hurricane, one of the five deadliest in U.S. history, struck the nation’s Gulf Coast Aug. 29, 2005, as a Category 3 storm, with 120-140 mph winds and stretching 400 miles across the coast. At one point, the storm became a Category 5, but weakened before striking land.

Katrina made multiple landfalls, inflicting what the National Weather Service called “staggering” damage and loss of life, particularly in Louisiana and Mississippi. A total of 1,833 were killed by the storm, which at the time caused some $108 billion dollars in damage, according to NWS.

New Orleans was ravaged by the storm, with at least 80% of the city flooded by Aug. 31, 2005, NWS noted on its website, adding that the impact was “heightened by breaks in the levees that separate New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain.”

Compounding the damage were key failures in governmental response, and in their statement, Bishop Campbell and Bishop Perry said that “despite the scale of devastation, it took days before the federal government responded with aid.”

More broadly, they observed, Hurricane Katrina “threw into stark focus the deep racial and socio-economic disparities across various sectors, including environmental justice, systemic housing inequality, and disaster response.”

The bishops pointed out that “some of the most catastrophic damage occurred in neighborhoods like the Ninth Ward, a predominantly Black neighborhood, which was under so much water that many of the residents had to take refuge in their attics and on their rooftops to avoid the rising tides.

“Today, we pray with those who still suffer from the loss of family and friends and whose very identities were affected,” said the bishops.

They also noted that the storm resulted in “the loss of irreplaceable items handed down through generations such as photos, videos, diaries, genealogical records, documents, and other mementos that are an essential means of sharing a person’s existence, history, and culture.”

In addition, said the bishops, “many residents were unable to return home because gentrification caused their former neighborhoods to become unaffordable.

“Disparities, rooted in historical and structural racism, intensified the suffering of many Black residents,” they said.

The hurricane and the response missteps “revealed the fragility of our cities to natural disasters and the reality of poverty among the most vulnerable in our country,” the bishops noted.

Bishop Campbell and Bishop Perry extolled the “powerful witness of the Catholic Church” that countered the “inadequate governmental response” to Katrina, citing the work of Catholic Charities USA and its local agencies, the USCCB’s Catholic Campaign for Human Development and Catholic Home Missions Appeal, the Archdiocese of New Orleans and the Knights of Columbus.

The two bishops stressed the “dire need for equitable investments in climate resilience and preparedness,” amid storms intensified by climate change.

“Katrina revealed how quickly entire communities can be overlooked, their cultures erased as neighborhoods vanished – taking with it cherished cultural spaces and historic landmarks,” said Bishop Campbell and Bishop Perry.

They added that two decades later, “many still struggle to rebuild intangible bonds,” with “ongoing mental and physical injuries” still evident today, while the “gap between the wealthy and poor continues to grow.”

Concluding their statement, Bishop Campbell and Bishop Perry said, “Let us join together, as one community, responding to the call to be leaven for the world. As church, let us be a lifeboat in the flood waters of injustice.”

By Joe Ruff and Josh McGovern
MINNEAPOLIS (OSV News) – For the first time since the Aug. 27 attack by a shooter who killed two children and wounded at least 21 more victims at an all-school Mass where he was presiding at Annunciation Catholic Church, Father Dennis Zehren publicly described his attempt to save the children.
“If I could have got between those bullets and the kids,” Father Zehren said, his voice breaking with emotion at an Aug. 30 news conference outside Annunciation elementary school.

“That’s what I was hoping to do. … the doors were barred, shut on the outside by the gunman,” said Father Zehren, Annunciation’s pastor. “We tried to get out. I think some of the fathers would have gone out there and gang-rushed him if they could have, and I would have been right there with them.
“But I think by that time, the damage was done,” and the shooter died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Father Zehren said.

“It’s a difficult memory,” Father Zehren said. “It just was loud (the gunshots). It just kept coming, and my first instinct was to just rush toward where the bullets were coming from. There were some fathers who were heading in the same direction, and I was on the phone with 911 just hoping to peek out the window to see which direction (the shooter) might be going in. So I could give them some help. But it was a flurry, and like I said, it seemed to keep coming.”

The news conference took place before the first parish Mass – held at the Annunciation Catholic School’s auditorium instead of the now-desecrated church – since the shooting. The school is steps away from the church.
Identified as Robin Westman, the suspected shooter was a former Annunciation student, then known as Robert Westman, whose mother had been previously employed by the school. Westman fired from three guns through Annunciation’s stained-glass windows around 8:30 a.m. during the first all-school Mass of the PreK-to-eighth-grade school’s academic year. Westman died by suicide in the parking lot.

Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis joined Father Zehren at the news conference, at one point placing his hand on the priest’s shoulder in support. The archbishop concelebrated the Mass that followed.

The archbishop and Father Zehren opened the news conference describing the importance of the Mass to the Catholic faith. The fact that Annunciation parish would hold a public Mass so soon after the church shooting might surprise some, the archbishop said.

“And yet it’s so important for us in our Catholic tradition for Masses, where we most experience God’s presence and God’s love,” Archbishop Hebda said. “And it’s the place where we come together to be a community.”

Father Zehren said the Mass is what the parish community needs.

“This is why we’re here,” he said. “They just want to be together. They want to pray. They want to help and do anything they can.

“Mass is the heart of what we do,” Father Zehren said. “The Mass is not just a worship service. Because we recognize that as Catholics … we enter into the paschal mystery of Jesus.”

That mystery is presented to the community each time a Mass is celebrated, the priest said.

“Whenever we gather at Mass, we are re-presented with Jesus … at the Last Supper. We are presented with his suffering … with his dying, and … with his rising from the dead,” Father Zehren said.

Asked about the impact of the church attack occurring during a Mass, Father Zehren said he would be “reflecting on that for the rest of my life.”

“I will never be able to unsee,” Father Zehren said. “But in addition to the sorrow and the terror, we know that Jesus was there with us. … Jesus comes to the depths of what we are going through. That’s where he brings the healing and the salvation for whatever we go through.”

Attending the Mass with his family was Sean O’Brien, an Annunciation alumnus and parent who said he was at the Aug. 27 Mass in the back of the church with his 2-year-old daughter, Molly, when shots rang out. His son Emmett, an Annunciation preschooler, was in the basement. His other children, fourth-grader Conor and first-grader Finley, were sitting with their classmates.

“I saw a shaft of light going through the window and that’s when I knew we were being attacked,” O’Brien said.

“I grabbed my daughter, and we went behind a pillar. … When the shooting stopped, we said, ‘OK, who needs help?’ And we did what we could.’”

O’Brien, 37, said he rushed to an injured student and remained there until the police came.

“There were people taking action that were motivated by the love they felt for the people around them, from the very moment things started,” he said. “And that’s only going to continue and get stronger.”

Sean’s wife, Mallory, said she learned that Finley was with her eighth-grade buddy, in a school tradition where older students accompany younger students to school Masses.

“They held hands all the way to the school” as students were evacuated, Mallory O’Brien said.

The O’Briens expressed gratitude that no one in their family was injured. And with service and community in mind, they are helping others where they can.

“We’ve really been getting together all week ever since Wednesday (Aug. 27),” Sean O’Brien said after the Mass. “The best thing for us has been to be together with the people that we love in this parish and in this community. … To be here, to be together again, really means a lot. There’s no place we’d rather be.”

At Mass in the school’s auditorium the following day, Father Zehren talked about the immense help parishioners and neighbors, community responders and others have provided one another. He compared it to the book of Exodus passage in which Moses lifted his arms and hands in prayer, and when he wearied, the Israelites fell back in battle. When Moses held up his arms, they prospered in the fight.

“That’s what we’ve been experiencing in so many ways around here. All of you. All of our neighbors, all of our community, police, first responders, they’ve been a rock underneath us,” he said Aug. 31. “And they will continue to be a rock for us. There (are) so many people who will be continuing to hold up our hands in prayer.”

(Joe Ruff is editor-in-chief and Josh McGovern is a reporter for The Catholic Spirit, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.)

By Maria Wiering
ST. PAUL (OSV News) – Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis will be reconsecrated before it again holds Mass after an Aug. 27 shooting during a Mass for schoolchildren left two children dead and 18 other victims wounded.

“The church does make provision” for reconsecrating a church building after a desecration, Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda told OSV News Aug. 28. “I’ve never had to do that, but I think it will be an important time. Here, where the church is still a crime scene and where there’s been substantial destruction, I think it’s probably going to be a while before we’re able to do that.”

While there are other places on the campus of Annunciation Catholic Church and Annunciation Catholic School that could hold Mass in the interim, “my understanding is that the church’s tradition is that no Mass or sacrament would be celebrated in there until there is that rite of reconsecration,” Archbishop Hebda said.

Canon No. 1211 in the church’s law states, “Sacred places are violated by gravely injurious actions done in them with scandal to the faithful, actions which, in the judgment of the local ordinary, are so grave and contrary to the holiness of the place that it is not permitted to carry on worship in them until the damage is repaired by a penitential rite according to the norm of the liturgical books.”

“I’m grateful that I will have that privilege of doing that at some point,” Archbishop Hebda said, speaking at the archdiocesan headquarters in St. Paul. “The church has such wisdom even about human nature and the human person, and even to have a ritual that would help people in that time of need, I think, is very significant.

“You hope that it will be an opportunity, whenever that occurs, for some healing,” he added, noting that he will work with Annunciation’s pastor, Father Dennis Zehren, on appropriate timing for the ritual. “It would be a priority for me, as I know it is for him.”

A former student at the school whose mother also previously worked there, the shooter, identified as Robin Westman, fired from three guns through Annunciation’s stained-glass windows around 8:30 a.m. during Annunciation Catholic School’s first all-school Mass of the PreK-to-eighth-grade school’s academic year. Westman died by suicide in the parking lot.

Investigators are working through a hate-riddled online manifesto posted by the shooter and other evidence to determine a clear motive for the violence and why Annunciation was targeted.

Fletcher Merkel, 8, and Harper Moyski, 10, were killed in their pews. Other victims, including 15 children and three adults in their 80s, were taken to nearby hospitals, including Hennepin County Medical Center, a Level 1 trauma center.

An extensive, spontaneous memorial of flowers, gifts and messages outside of the church includes tributes to Merkel and Moyski, as well as prayers for those injured and the school’s families.

Archbishop Hebda visited the school Aug. 27 and has since presided at several prayer services for the victims and the mourning community.

Annunciation Catholic Church was founded in 1922. Its parish school was founded by Dominican sisters the following year. The present church building was completed in 1962.

(OSV News) – Eight-year-old Fletcher Merkel “loved his family, friends, fishing, cooking and any sport that he was allowed to play.” Ten-year-old Harper Moyski was a “joyful” big sister, who was “bright” and “deeply loved.”

The parents of both children confirmed as victims of the Aug. 27 shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church issued their first statements in the aftermath, mourning the loss of their children.

Jesse Merkel, Fletcher’s father, said the hole left in his family’s hearts by his son’s death will never be filled, during an Aug. 28 press conference outside Annunciation School in Minneapolis.

In his remarks, Jesse Merkel said they would never be allowed to “watch him grow into the wonderful young man he was on the path to becoming.”

He also noted prayers for the family of Harper Moyski and of the other people affected by the shooting, and expressed gratitude for “the swift and heroic actions of children and adults alike” inside the church.

“We ask not for your sympathy, but your empathy as our family and our Annunciation community grieve and try to make sense of such a senseless act of violence,” Merkel said. “Please remember Fletcher for the person he was, and not the act that ended his life.”

Harper was a “bright, joyful, and deeply loved 10-year-old whose laughter, kindness, and spirit touched everyone,” her parents, Michael Moyski and Jackie Flavin, said in a statement issued Aug. 28.

“Our hearts are broken not only as parents, but also for Harper’s sister, who adored her big sister and is grieving an unimaginable loss. As a family, we are shattered,” they said.

“While our immediate focus is on Harper and our family’s healing, we also believe it is important that her memory fuels action. No family should ever have to endure this kind of pain. We urge our leaders and communities to take meaningful steps to address gun violence and the mental health crisis in this country,” they continued.

“Harper’s light will always shine through us, and we hope her memory inspires others to work toward a safer, more compassionate world.”

Choking back tears, Fletcher’s father pleaded: “Give your kids an extra hug and kiss today.”
He said, “We love you, Fletcher, and you’ll always be with us.”

By Kimberley Heatherington , OSV News

(OSV News) — First, the good news: The “One Big Beautiful Bill” — the Trump administration’s signature legislation — creates a new federal tax credit for individuals who make donations to 501(c)(3) public charities providing scholarships to elementary or secondary school pupils, an obvious potential benefit to Catholic schools seeking students.

Now for the not-so-good news: Considered only a partial victory by school choice advocates — the bill lacked universal state adoption measures, limits donation levels and is unclear about religious liberties — there’s also the very real question of supply and demand.

“There’s a lot — even in states with choice — of closed Catholic school buildings that are sitting empty,” commented Shawn Peterson, president of Catholic Education Partners, a national apostolate that advocates for school choice and access to Catholic education.

During the 1964-1965 school year, the nationwide network of Catholic parochial schools served about 5.6 million students. But since then, enrollment has dropped 70%, to around 1.7 million students today.

“There’s other issues too — you have to find teachers that can teach in those buildings,” Peterson told OSV News. “It’s not an easy task to just open up a Catholic school. But who’s working on this as a bigger problem? There’s a lot of work to do in this area; there’s a lot of states and dioceses that have not done as well as they could.”

That said, Peterson still finds the current educational environment “an especially interesting time, because in 2025, we’re coming up on the 60th anniversary of ‘Gravissimum Educationis’ — and that’s the document that we who work in the church point to as the reason why we support parental choice initiatives. That’s the document that says parents are first educators — and the state needs to do things to support parents in that choice, including financial support.”

“Gravissimum Educationis” (Declaration on Christian Education) — teaching from the Second Vatican Council issued under St. Paul VI in 1965 — notes, “Since parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognized as the primary and principal educators.”

For proponents of school choice, that recognition also extends to parents choosing where and how their offspring will be educated.

“We need to really start looking at the states that have choice,” Peterson advised. “Are we making sure there is a supply there? Are there families that want to access a Catholic school, but there’s not any open seats? Do they live in an area that doesn’t currently have — or has never had — a Catholic school? Well,” he added, “now there’s an opportunity.”

Margaret Kaplow, communications manager for the National Catholic Educational Association, shared some statistics with OSV News.

“Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia provide children the option to attend the public or private school of their parents’ choice through tax credit, voucher or scholarship,” she said. “In 2024, school choice programs expanded in 15 states — 18% of Catholic school students utilized a parental choice program, and 31% of schools enrolled students utilizing a parental choice program.”

As might be expected, some states perform better than others.

“The arch/dioceses in Ohio, Florida, Indiana, Oklahoma, Iowa and Arizona reported that over 50% of their students utilize parental choice programs,” noted Kaplow. “In Florida, 85.7% of students are utilizing parental choice programs, compared to 60.1% last year. In Ohio, 80.9% of students are utilizing parental choice programs, compared to 62.9% last year.”

Peterson is optimistic that — with potentially expanded tax funding — those numbers can increase.

“We hope it will energize a lot of states. Not only increase programs or increase access for kids in states that already have school choice, but we’re hoping a lot of the blue states will opt in as well,” he said. “Especially because it won’t cost their state anything; it won’t take any money away from public education.”

“If I were a blue state governor,” Peterson said, “I wouldn’t want a bunch of federal tax dollars leaving my state to help other states; I’d want to keep that in my state to help the children in my state. So we want blue state governors to really take a serious look at that — and decide to opt into the program.”

Still, practical challenges remain.

“There’s a couple of places in West Virginia where they have a vibrant Catholic population, but they’ve never had a Catholic school. And now they have up to $5,500 per child to spend on a great Catholic education — but they don’t have access to a school,” Peterson shared. “It’s sort of like giving someone a $100 gift card for a night out at a restaurant — but there’s no restaurant to spend it at.”

Even states recognized as favorable to school choice can face issues.

“Texas, for example,” said Peterson, “is a place that’s going to be working on the supply side as well. About a million kids are going to be eligible for school in Texas. But in the latest numbers I saw, there’s only 35,000 open seats in private schools. Not just Catholic — all private schools.”

Peterson then asked an obvious — but perhaps provocative — question.

“What are we going to do about being evangelistic, and are we going to open new schools? If there’s a community that wants a Catholic school and the parents have the funds now because of choice, are we going to trust and try to give them a Catholic school?”

In the Diocese of Venice, Florida, Jesuit Father John Belmonte, superintendent of Catholic education, is a one-man school choice promotion squad. Previously a principal in Milwaukee and a superintendent in Joliet, Illinois, he regretfully noted that some dioceses are “chronically uninterested” in school choice.

The Diocese of Venice was established by St. John Paul II in 1984, from parts of the Archdiocese of Miami and the dioceses of Orlando and St. Petersburg, Florida. Its 61 parishes serve a Catholic population of 237,483.

“We have the best tax-credit scholarship program in the country,” Father Belmonte said. “Gov. DeSantis signed into law universal school choice — so I’ve taken advantage of all of this to build our enrollment over the last five years to 40%-plus in the diocese. We have the fastest growing Catholic school system in the United States of America.”

In March 2023, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 1, expanding available school choice options for all students in Florida by eliminating financial eligibility restrictions and an enrollment cap.

“We’re 15 points past any other diocese in the country in terms of enrollment growth,” added Father Belmonte. “And some of that is driven by school choice. Nearly 100% of our students receive the state scholarship for school.”

Enrollment has risen from 4,400 students to 6,700 students within five years.

“I have communicated with thousands of families over the last five years — basically through a digital platform; text messages and emails that we send out every year to families about these scholarship programs,” said Father Belmonte. “So it’s communication. It’s working with people where they are.”

But that’s not all.

“It’s about leadership. If the leadership in the diocese or the diocesan schools are not interested in this, then it’s very difficult to see the needle move,” admitted Father Belmonte.

“I have the benefit of a bishop here,” he said, speaking of Bishop Frank J. Dewane, “who’s willing to work with me on these things and help us develop our programs. And then I have pushed this into the schools and brought the principals along, so the principals are on board with what we’re doing.”

Father Belmonte was emphatic that for school choice to be successful, “we need leadership from our bishops; we need leadership from our pastors; we need leadership from our principals, our superintendents. We need leadership to make these things work.”

Still, the numbers alone should appeal to any Catholic education leader.

“The new federal tax credit program has the potential to transform Catholic education in the United States of America. It has that potential,” Father Belmonte said. “And again, it’s back to leadership. Either our leaders look at it and understand it — pay attention to it and take advantage of it — or it will go nowhere. It takes a lot of elbow grease to get these things off the ground. So we have the potential there — and I’ll just give you numbers.”

He paused, before laying out the calculus for his own diocese.

“The Diocese of Venice has roughly 250,000 parishioners. You may know people who have to pay the federal government $1,000 in taxes each year; most people would end up owing the federal government that amount of taxes each year,” Father Belmonte hypothesized. “And so if you’re able to convince them to shift their tax liability from the federal government to a school to help with Catholic schools — and you’re able to do $1,000 per 250,000 parishioners — you’re looking at $250 million, potentially coming into a school system.”

He added, “That’s the scale we’re talking about.”

So according to Peterson and Father Belmonte, effective school choice programs require — at a minimum — a combination of access, availability, leadership and communication.

“We actually haven’t done a great job promoting these programs, and making sure that our parents are getting access to them — and that’s a big job,” Peterson suggested. “But that’s going to be the church’s responsibility in our work, going forward. That’s not the responsibility of a legislator or governor. That’s going to be about what we need to do in the church.”

(Kimberley Heatherington writes for OSV News from Virginia.)