Questions from Minneapolis

The recent shooting of pupils and elderly parishioners during morning Mass at the Church of the Annunciation in Minneapolis has raised many questions. Some of them are of quite recent origin, while others are getting quite old.

According to reports, the shooting started just a few minutes into Mass, just as the responsorial Psalm was ending. The perpetrator, now identified as Robin Westman, 23, is said to have barricaded the Church by passing two-by-fours through door handles, and then stood outside shooting through the windows with a variety of arms, including a rifle, a handgun, and a shotgun.

Survivors hid beneath pews, in the basement, anywhere that seemed to offer save cover. Some students are reported to have protected younger children. Two children were killed – one 8 years old, the other aged 10 – and seventeen others were injured. The injured ranged in age from six to their 80s.

After firing “dozens” of rounds, the shooter committed suicide.

Westman appears to have been a troubled individual. Born as a boy, he at some point began to identify as female, and is reported to have changed names and possibly gender. For reasons not yet made publicly clear, Westman appears to have acquired a significant arsenal of weapons, developed a somewhat muddled manifesto, and published alarming videos and statements online.

It is also reported that Westman was a former pupil at the Catholic school attended by the children he shot, and that his mother had worked there.

Many questions have already been asked, such as what Westman’s motive was, where and how the firearms were acquired. It will likely require professionals to determine the things that truly motivated the shooting, though suggestions of fear, self-revulsion, and even demonism have surfaced. Many of the materials he posted online have been taken down by authorities.

A variety of further questions are being asked, such as why so many mass shootings take place in the world, and particularly the United States; whether stricter gun control might provide an answer; and what further security options may be required.

One might also wonder how any human being, let alone a 23 year-old from an apparently loving home, is driven into such shockingly violent, evil action against others, especially children of their own community. What are we teaching pupils in our schools, in films, in music and art, in social media? Are we focusing enough on practicalities like reading and history, arithmetic and other topics that might prepare children to face a challenging world in truth, with the strength of the gifts that have been given to them by their Creator? Are we helping them to seek and build lives based on shared social truths, or to turn inside themselves as arbiters of their own truths, accepting their own impulses as determinants of right and wrong? Should we be wondering why our children are so confused and enraged?

Are we allowing parents to raise their children in accordance with eternal truths, working with them to develop civilized behaviour; or are we dictating to parents how their children will be raised, what morals will be accepted, even if perhaps those morals are derived from least-common denominators rather than universal truth?

In their shock and grief, some parents of Westman’s victims are reported by mainstream press to have wondered where God was while their children were being terrorized, assaulted, killed.

Should we instead be asking ourselves how we, as a society, have wandered so far away from God? Are we, as a society, repeating the mistake of our first parents, seeking the fruit of the tree that gives the knowledge of good and evil, turning away from God and the commandments He has already given us? Perhaps these are questions we should ponder while we consider the others.

Remembering Father Alphonse de Valk

(Today marks the sixth anniversary of the death of Father Alphonse de Valk, C.S.B., a faithful, courageous and indefatigable Basilian priest, pro-life-and-family apostle, and the founder of Catholic Insight magazine. Here is what we wrote those on his entering into eternity five years ago, as we continue to remember him in our prayers and thoughts)[…]Continue reading→

Divine Mercy Sunday – An Echo of Every Mass

Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe’…  ‘My Lord and my God!’ (Jn. 20:18)). Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, and as we celebrate the end of the Easter Octave, we contemplate the wounded side of our Saviour, the Church’s source of life. On Good Friday in the[…]Continue reading→

Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów

We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→

First Holy Communion: Sermon from May 16, 1943

 Here is a sermon from the good old days by +Rev. Msgr. Vincent Nicholas Foy (August 14, 1915 – March 13, 2017), from 1943. Readers may recall that Pope Saint Pius X, by the decree Quam Singulari in 1910, lowered the customary age of reception of Holy Communion – after the rigours of the plague[…]Continue reading→

In the Glorious Light of Easter, Alleluia!

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory (Col. 3:3-4). The Resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour[…]Continue reading→

An Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday

The time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is one of waiting, in silence, as the world wonders – anticipates – what will happen, after the death of Christ. We re-live this time each year in the anamnesis of our liturgy, and in turn look forward to the glorious re-creation of all things at the[…]Continue reading→

Europe’s Long Descent

(As we meditate on this day on Christ’s burial, and His descent into hell, it is fitting to ponder here with contributor Peter Marcus how the world seems to be heading there as well. The difference is that, although God cannot ‘redeem’ hell, nor those therein, He can and did redeem the world. There is[…]Continue reading→

Pope Saint John Paul II’s First Good Friday Homily

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS AT THE COLOSSEUM Good Friday, 13 April 1979   When we make the Way of the Cross from one station to the next, in spirit we are always at the spot wherethis journey had its “historical” place: where it[…]Continue reading→

A Meditation for Good Friday: How To Undo the Effects of Sin?

Cardinal Newman, now Saint John Henry Newman, was a towering figure of nineteenth-century Catholicism who is almost universally admired. I say “almost” because not everyone likes him. I knew a priest once, Arthur Caulkins, who has become disenchanted with Newman. As an undergraduate Arthur had been enamoured of Newman, and this interest continued when he[…]Continue reading→

Pope Saint John Paul II’s Last Passion Sunday

(This is the last of Pope Saint John Paul II’s Passion-Palm Sunday homilies, given in 2004, before his own passion and death the following year, when he was unable – for the first time – to celebrate Mass on this Holy Day. Yet he worked in the Lord’s vineyard right up until the end, having[…]Continue reading→