Archbishop calls for making safety a ‘national priority’ after Minneapolis school shooting
Cardinal Blase Cupich called those who hold power across the country to “make the security of our people a national priority” after Wednesday’s shooting in a Catholic school in Minneapolis.
“The firearms are abundant and attempts at common sense to limit their availability have been widely rejected in the name of a freedom not found in our Constitution,” said the archbishop of Chicago in a press release. “The reductions in health care and social service programs will only exacerbate a national mental health crisis and increase alienation.”
Cupich’s comments came after a The shooter opened fire Wednesday morning during mass at the Catholic School Annunciation, killing two children and injuring 17 other people before committing suicide. Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara said that the shooter – armed with a rifle, a hunting rifle and a pistol – approached the church side and turned through the windows to the children sitting in the benches.
The children who died were 8 and 10 years and 14 other children were among the injured, said O’Hara. All injured children had to survive, said the chief.
“If a place should have been sure, it should have been there. If any time should have been safe, it should have been,” said Cupich. “Tragically, we know neither place nor time when Americans – even children – are sheltered from the curse of armed violence.”
Cupich said that the Archdiocese of Chicago will join his prayers with others than the “wounded in the body and the mind will heal and that the murdered children will be received in heaven”. However, he said that “we must also cry for action to prevent another tragedy of this type”.
“We ask God to give (those who in power) the courage to take the measures they know will attenuate, if not to eliminate, the fear that parents must feel their children send to school and the Americans feel by leaving their homes for simple races,” said Cupich. “They must surely be moved by these shots. We pray so that they do not consider them inevitable because we will have certainly rendered our rights to life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness. ”
A spokesperson for the Archdiocese said that all of his schools had “complete crisis plans” and protocols, which the leaders examined before the start of the new school year. The spokesman also said they had “excellent communication” with the civil authorities.
Governor JB Pritzker declared on social networks that Illinois “lies closely the people of Minnesota to our hearts today”.
“The start of the school year should be a period of renewed hope, no armed violence and devastation,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed the reports.
