Archbishop Michael O. Jackels of Dubuque, Iowa, released the following statement on May 25: Pity the grocery shoppers in Buffalo, the school kids in Texas, their grieving families, and everyone now more afraid than ever of doing those simple, everyday things. You’ve got to wonder about reasons for refusing reasonable limits on gun ownership, which are inspired by the common good and offering protection from harm. We readily identify things like abortion and capital punishment as life issues, which Catholic teaching identifies as absolutely wrong under any circumstance. But protecting the earth, our common home, or making food, water, shelter, education and health care accessible, or defense against gun violence … these are life issues too. Some people want to repair the scandal of pro-choice Catholic politicians by refusing them the Eucharist. But that’s a misguided response for at least two reasons: As Jesus said, it’s the sick people who need a doctor, not the healthy, and he gave us the Eucharist as a healing remedy; don’t deny the people who need the medicine. Also, to be consistent, to repair the scandal of Catholics being indifferent or opposed to all those other life issues, they would have to be denied Holy Communion as well. Better, I think, to put the Eucharist in the hands of such Catholics in hopes that one day soon they would put their hands to work on behalf of life, in defense of all life.
Five windows at St. Margaret of Scotland School shot out When St. Margaret of Scotland School principal Shauntae Davis got word early in the morning of May 25 that several of the school’s windows had been shot out, she notified families and offered them the option of keeping their children at home for the day.
Parish offers comfort to children who lost both parents in Uvalde At a May 26 Mass, the Catholic community of Sacred Heart Church in Uvalde, Texas, comforted the four children of Joe and Irma Garcia. Their first loss came May 24 with the death of their mother, a teacher fatally shot during the attack at her elementary school, and it was followed by the death of their father two days later from a fatal heart attack.
Statement of Cardinal Cupich on the racist mass shooting in Buffalo, New York On Saturday, May 14, a gunman used an AR-15, high-capacity assault weapon to murder 10 Black Americans at a Buffalo grocery store, wounding two bystanders. Many of his victims were near or beyond retirement age, including Pearl Young, 77, a grandmother of eight who taught Sunday school, and Katherine Massey, 72, a civil-rights advocate who had written in favor of stronger gun-safety laws.