Tragedy in Minneapolis

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

It has taken me a day to process through the horrible event that took place in Minneapolis yesterday morning, when two children were murdered, and other seriously wounded, as they attended Mass. Most of us, in trying to process what happened, went through various stages of grief, there are those who are stuck on anger, but that is not where we should stay.

An eight year old and a ten year old died as the result of a mentally ill person, targeting not them, but an idea, something that was stuck in their mind. This is at the heart of the tragedy, that children lost their lives yesterday, but prior to that they lost their identity as human beings, made in the image and likeness of God, and became abstractions, not only in the mind of someone suffering from mental illness, but in the minds of many people grasping onto ideologies, instead of reality.

The worst thing that could happen now is for these two children, their fourteen schoolmates and the three adults who were wounded, to become political talking points, unless those are discussions centered around how do we address the out of control mental health crisis we are facing as a nation, and in the world. The tears that came into my eyes yesterday, and as I write this today, are there because I think of the children that I have known in various parishes, in other ministries and jobs, and among friends and family. I have been crying over these children, because they are Christ.

We need to see the face of Christ in these children, not only when they become victims, but as they live their lives, so hopefully they will not become victims. We need to see that they are human beings, so that hopefully others see them as such, and not as ideas, or objects, or enemies. The abandonment of this humanity which we share with these children, which we share with Jesus Christ, leads to the killing of children in schools, the killing of political rivals, to Auschwitz.

This has been a tragedy, and we should grieve. We should join our prayers to those of their families, friends, school and parish community. We should also pray for the family of the killer, who feel the grief of losing a child, and the guilt of wondering what they could have done to stop this from having happened. We cannot let this just be a political soundbite, we need to go deeper and understand our own humanity, and our own obligation to end the Culture of Death that has been taking our children.

Pax,

Fr. Henry