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.)

By Joseph D. White , OSV News

In the wake of the horrific Catholic school shooting in Minneapolis, what can we do to help kids stay safe while also easing the fear that their school could be the next site of such a tragedy?

Here are some tips for parents on managing children’s worries about school shootings:

— Help them remember that these events are rare.
Although even one episode of gun violence at school is too many, students in the vast majority of schools across the country will, thankfully, never experience an incident like this. Let them know that active-shooter drills are like fire drills. They are preparing for something that will probably never happen, but it’s important to have a plan just in case.

— Don’t tell them nothing will happen to them. Although we want to reassure children and teens that such a tragedy is not likely, unfortunately, we can’t promise that it will never happen.

— Reassure your child that you and others are working to make sure they stay safe, and that you would never send him or her into an environment that you knew was dangerous. Adults at your child’s school also know that student safety is their top priority. Encourage your child to listen and follow directions related to school safety and to trust that the adults who care for them are working to keep them safe.

— Encourage teens to be watchful. Many teens are glued to their smartphone screens, even when in crowded places. When in large crowds, such as school dances, graduations, assemblies and areas where students are congregating before and after school, teens periodically should look around and check their surroundings. Does anything look suspicious? Do they know where the exits are if they had to leave quickly?

— Emphasize the importance of reporting threats. There have been numerous examples of situations in which students who committed acts of violence had made threats, either on social media or in person, prior to the event. Teens are sometimes reluctant to report these threats for fear of retaliation. Highlight the importance of telling someone about what they see and hear if they think a fellow student might be planning to act out. If their concerns are dismissed, tell them to keep talking about it until someone takes them seriously. In recent months, several tragedies were averted because vigilant students and staff acted quickly when they saw signs of potential violence.

For additional tips on helping children and teens talk about school violence, see the website of the National Association of School Psychologists. At its resources and publications link, you will find multiple resources for dealing with school safety issues.

School violence is a scary subject, but we need to keep lines of communication open, both with our children and with school personnel. Continued communication and collaboration can help our kids stay safer and feel more secure.

(Dr. Joseph D. White is a child and family psychologist and associate publisher of Catechetical Resources for OSV.)

By Maria Wiering , OSV News

MINNEAPOLIS (OSV News) — As the sun set the evening of Aug. 28, mourners lingered in front of Annunciation Catholic Church before a robust memorial of flowers, stuffed animals, toys and candles.

Visitors of all ages wrote messages on large pads of paper, others in chalk on the sidewalk.

“Our hearts with you,” read one.

“You are in my prayers,” read another.

A third: “There will be a day with no more pain or suffering. Hold onto Jesus’s hand until that day. He’s got you.”

Since the morning, parishioners and school families, neighbors and others had come to the church, many with bouquets, some cut from their own late-summer gardens, all aiming to express solidarity with a Catholic community grieving the loss of life, health and sense of security in the aftermath of a school shooting.

“Your mind just can’t leave those parents who lost kids,” said Megan Kirchner, 40, who tearfully walked around the church exterior in the waning light with her partner and three children.

That afternoon, the father of a slain child, 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel, stood before the memorial to address the community. Jesse Merkel recalled his son as a boy who loved family, fishing, cooking and sports.

“Please remember Fletcher for the person he was and not the act that ended his life,” said Merkel, with the hand of Annunciation Catholic School Principal Matt DeBoer on his shoulder. “We love you, Fletcher. You will always be with us.”

Fletcher was one of two students killed in church pews Aug. 27 when a shooter fired with three guns through the church’s exterior windows into an all-school Mass. The other student was 10-year-old Harper Moyski, whose parents recalled her as “bright, joyful and deeply loved.”

Eighteen others — 15 children and three adults in their 80s — were also injured and treated at nearby hospitals. On Aug. 28, one victim remained in critical condition, with two others in serious condition, according to the emergency medical team at Hennepin County Medical Center, a Level 1 trauma center in downtown Minneapolis.

The 23-year-old suspected shooter died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the church’s parking lot, according to law enforcement, who were working to pinpoint a clear motive for the act of violence.

Boards covered seven of Annunciation’s narrow stained-glass windows, behind another memorial set against a young oak tree.

“Just words don’t work any more,” read a sign tucked into clusters of hydrangeas, sunflowers and roses.

The memorial was a spontaneous response for a reeling community, one frequently described as “tight-knit” — both as a parish and preK-8 school, and also as a neighborhood, where many school families live within walking distance.

Or running distance — as evidenced by how many parents literally ran to the school when they heard of the shooting, which occurred around 8:30 a.m., as Mass attendees were preparing to sing the “Alleluia.”

Father Erich Rutten witnessed those parents rushing on foot to the school as he followed a barrage of police cars to the church that morning. The pastor of two nearby parishes and chaplain of their shared elementary school, Father Rutten happened to be driving through the neighborhood and stopped, without knowing what had transpired, to provide pastoral assistance at Annunciation — a parish where he had served on staff decades ago, before entering seminary.

When he arrived on the scene, parents did not “know if their child was alive or dead,” he said. “They’re just panicked and scared.”

For 45 minutes, he tried to offer support to parents, especially those who appeared to be alone, and prayed the rosary with some of them. Ultimately, he spent almost three hours at the parish, and was with one family as they were informed their child had died.

“Just that kind of the bottom-of-your-soul scream of despair — that was really, really awful. Awful,” he said.

Father Rutten recalled the previous day’s events following an evening ecumenical prayer service Aug. 28 at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis. The service drew a range of Minneapolis religious leaders as well as hundreds of mourners who filled the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ co-cathedral.

Among them were Mary Perez, 32, and her son, Felix, a first-grader at Annunciation who had been at the all-school Mass and witnessed students shot and injured. Mary brought Felix to the prayer service so he could find comfort in the community’s support.

“I thought it’d be important for Felix to know that he’s not alone in this, that this is a safe place,” said Mary, a Catholic. “We’re all going to come back from this, and he has people behind him, and I don’t want him to be afraid of the church.”

Six-year-old Felix said that he remembers “all of it,” especially how Principal DeBoer told the students to get down. Eighth-graders protected some of the younger students, Mary said.

“A friend of mine got hit in the forehead,” Felix told OSV News. “When I was hiding, I saw somebody covered in blood, and they were wearing a green sweatshirt covered in blood.”

Mary’s brother, 24-year-old Benjamin Bozer, wept next to his wife, Penny, as he heard his nephew recount the events.

“Growing up, I was always worried that it could happen to me; but the fact that it could happen to someone so young, it’s just senseless,” he said. “Nobody should have to go through this. Nobody should have to witness this.”

Annunciation parishioner and former teacher Janet Parker, whose now-grown children once attended the school, also attended the basilica’s prayer service.

“It’s so strange to see your community in the news framed this way,” she said. “It was numbing.”

Jiyun Kim, whose Korean Catholic St. Andrew Kim Parish has worshipped at Annunciation’s church since 2023, felt similarly. The 40-year-old brought her two children, ages 10 and 13, to visit Annunciation’s memorial the evening of Aug. 28.

While her children do not attend the school, their ages make her “feel really connected and related to what happened to the families and the community,” she said. “I couldn’t imagine how I’m going to feel during the Mass every weekend.”

Yet, she said, “when I see those flowers and the people crowded here, I feel we get stronger. We support each other, and that’s how our community heals each other. So when somebody falls, somebody will hold their hands, and then somebody will support their back. That’s how we make our community.”

The Twin Cities’ Catholic clergy have played an important role in supporting Annunciation’s families. St. Paul and Minneapolis Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda has repeatedly praised the response of Annunciation pastor Father Dennis Zehren, who became the parish’s pastor in June, as well as Deacon Kevin Conneely, who was ordained in 2023.

After ministering at Annunciation to families in the hours after the shooting, Father Rutten headed to Hennepin County Medical Center, where he sat in the waiting room with families. St. Paul and Minneapolis Auxiliary Bishop Kevin T. Kenney, who serves as pastor of a downtown Minneapolis church and grew up attending Annunciation, also headed to HCMC that morning, immediately after hearing the news of the shooting.

“I was there in the waiting room as families were rushing down there, and they didn’t know what state, what condition their child was in, so they’re all panicking,” he said.

He was “just trying to give them a presence, a calm presence, a supportive presence to know they were not alone,” he added.

Meanwhile, fellow Auxiliary Bishop Michael J. Izen was called to nearby Children’s Minnesota Hospital to offer anointing of the sick to an injured Annunciation student.

In responding to a tragedy, “there’s always an initial, ‘What am I going to say? What can I do?’ And then you realize that people are just comforted and pleased by your presence” as a priest, he said.

Across the Mississippi River in St. Paul, both bishops preached Aug. 28, along with Archbishop Hebda, at a noon prayer service at the Cathedral of St. Paul.

Bishop Izen addressed key questions on the minds of many Twin Cities Catholics, especially with the shooting having occurred during Mass.

“Where was Jesus yesterday? Where was Jesus at 8:30 in the morning at Annunciation?” he asked. “Why during a school Mass? Why an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old? Why right here in the Twin Cities?”

“There’s no shortage of questions, but only one answer: Jesus Christ,” he said.

“Where was Jesus during that time, during the Mass, the shooting? He was right there on the cross suffering with them,” he said. “The Lord always wants us, in those times of suffering, to turn to the cross. So turn to our Lord. Go to Jesus.”

(Maria Wiering is senior writer for OSV News.)

By Kate Scanlon
WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Some immigrant religious workers are facing legal limbo, and Catholic advocates are pushing the Trump administration to address the backlog in their visa category.

Many immigrant religious workers, such as Catholic priests and nuns, legally enter the country on R-1 non-immigrant religious worker visas. These are initially granted for a 30-month period, with one possible renewal allowing for a total of five years. During that window, they can apply for employment-based EB-4 status to remain in the U.S. without interruption.

“One of the challenges is that because the number of green cards that are issued every year is not representative of the number of people that are eligible,” said Erin Corcoran, associate teaching professor and executive director of the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.

That backlog could have a grave impact on the church in the U.S. The National Study of Catholic Priests, released in 2022 by The Catholic University of America’s Catholic Project, indicated 24% of priests serving in the U.S. are foreign-born.

In April, bipartisan legislation, the Religious Workforce Protection Act, was introduced in the Senate by Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va.; Susan Collins, R-Maine; and Jim Risch, R-Idaho, and in the House by Reps. Mike Carey, R-Ohio, and Richard Neal, D-Mass. All five are Catholic.

If signed into law, the bill would permit religious workers already in the U.S. on temporary R-1 status with pending EB-4 applications to stay in the U.S. while waiting for permanent residency, Collins’ office said.
Catholic organizations, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Jesuit Refugee Service/USA and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC), have backed the legislation.

A USCCB spokesperson told OSV News on Aug. 6, “We’re continuing our education efforts about the pressing need for the RWPA.”

“We remain hopeful that Congress will have an opportunity to move the bill forward before the end of the year,” the spokesperson said.

Corcoran said the legislation would allow, for example, a Catholic priest with temporary R-1 status to move from one parish to another in accordance with diocesan needs.

The bill would not increase the limit on how many visas are granted.

“It’s a very modest fix,” she said.

Despite bipartisan support, it was not immediately clear what the prospects might be for the bill once lawmakers return from their August recess, or whether President Donald Trump would sign it.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment from OSV News by publication time on whether the Trump administration would support the bill.

Dylan Corbett, executive director of the Hope Border Institute, told OSV News, “Congress and the Trump administration have a good opportunity to make an urgent targeted fix to ensure clergy and religious from abroad serving our communities throughout the country don’t become casualties of an increasingly broken immigration system.”

Corcoran said, “We’ve seen so little bipartisan solutions to problems, and we all benefit from these people being in our parishes.”

Advocacy for the bill comes as the Trump administration seeks to implement hardline immigration policies, including its pursuit of what it has called “the largest deportation in U.S. history.”

However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an Aug. 7 interview with Raymond Arroyo on EWTN’s The World Over that the administration is trying to “create its own standalone process” for religious workers, instead of having them conflated with other immigration categories.

“And I’ve been in touch, for example, with a number of our cardinals here in the United States and bishops about that as well,” Rubio said. “We don’t want to read headlines that some Catholic Church had to close because it couldn’t get their priests here … some order closed because some nun couldn’t get here.”

Congress is scheduled to return from its August recess in early September.

By Kate Scanlon
WASHINGTON (OSV News) – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reportedly closed off a pathway for citizenship for immigrants who apply for green cards through a spouse or other family members, raising the prospect of deporting them and breaking up their families.

NBC News reported that new guidance issued by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services made a change to its policy manual stating that federal immigration authorities may begin removal proceedings for those seeking legal status through a spouse or other relative.

“Petitioners and alien beneficiaries should be aware that a family-based petition accords no immigration status nor does it bar removal,” the guidance said.

In an Aug. 1 memo about the policy change, USCIS said, “Fraudulent, frivolous, or otherwise non-meritorious family-based immigrant visa petitions erode confidence in family-based pathways to lawful permanent resident (LPR) status and undermine the immigration system in the United States.”

“USCIS must ensure that qualifying marriages and family relationships are genuine, verifiable, and compliant with all applicable laws,” the memo said.

Dylan Corbett, executive director of the Hope Border Institute, a group that works to apply the perspective of Catholic social teaching in policy and practice to the U.S.-Mexico border region, told OSV News, “The administration continues to insist that they are simply targeting criminals in immigration enforcement operations, but that’s not what is happening.”

“They are deploying ICE agents to arrest people showing up to their immigration hearings,” Corbett said. “They are taking away people’s legal status and making them undocumented by revoking their parole and TPS. And now they are threatening to go after those trying to pursue lawful residency.”

On social media, USCIS argued it was “consolidating and clarifying certain requirements for family-based immigration” to “increase the integrity and security of our immigration processes.”

But Corbett argued, “Rather than trying to rack up numbers with an indiscriminate mass deportation campaign, we should be focusing on offering legal pathways to migrants who are desperate to do things the right way.”

“That’s something everybody can agree on,” he said.

(Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington. Follow her on X @kgscanlon.)