Prayer defended as response to US church shooting

A shooter killed two children and wounded 17 people at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis on August 27. The shooter died by self-inflicted wounds.

Catholics and communities gathered to pray in the aftermath, but some figures in the media and even politicians derided prayer and dismissed its role in addressing suffering and societal ills.

Democrat Representative Brittany Pettersen from Colorado said in a post on X: “Thoughts and prayers aren’t going to do anything to fix this.”

Representative Maxwell Frost, co-chair of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, echoed that sentiment, stating on X that “these children were probably praying when they were shot to death at Catholic school”.

“Don’t give us your [expletive] thoughts and prayers,” Mr Frost added.

Jen Psaki, an MSNBC host, said “Prayers [do] not end school shootings”.

“Prayers do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back. Enough with the thoughts and prayers,” she said.

Catholics and other Christians pushed back on the negative view of prayer.

Franciscan University stated on X: “We will continue to pray, not because we are passive, but because we know only God can bring true justice, healing, and peace.

“Evil wants us to stop praying and to despair. We will not. We cling to Christ, who has conquered death.”

Bishop Robert Barron told Fox Digital that “prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God, which strikes me as altogether appropriate precisely at times of great pain”.

“Prayer by no means stands in contrast to decisive moral action,” he said. “This is not an either/or proposition.”

Vice President J.D. Vance, who is Catholic, also joined the conversation, posting on X in response to Ms Psaki that any criticism of prayer is “bizarre”.

“We pray because our hearts are broken,” he wrote. “We pray because we know God listens. We pray because we know that God works in mysterious ways and can inspire us to further action. Why do you feel the need to attack other people for praying when kids were just killed praying?”

After reciting the Angelus prayer with thousands of people gathered in St Peter’s Square on August 31, Pope Leo XIV publicly prayed for the victims of the Minneapolis school shooting and prayed for an end to gun violence, which he described as a “pandemic”.

FULL STORY

After Minneapolis Catholic church shooting, public leaders debate prayer (By Tyler Arnold/CNA)

Pope prays for Minneapolis victims, denounces ‘pandemic’ of gun violence (Catholic News Service)